If we now turn to totemic society, with its elaborate clan-system, it is quite another story.
Blood-revenge ranks amongst the foremost of the clansman's social obligations.

Over the whole world it stands out by itself as the type of all that law means for the savage.

Within the clan, indeed, the maxim of blood for blood does not hold; though there may be another kind of punitive law put into force by the totemites against an erring brother, as, for instance, if they slay one of their number for disregarding the exogamic rule and consorting with a woman who is all-one-flesh with him.

But, between clans of the same tribe, the system of blood-revenge requires strict reprisals, according to the principle that some one on the other side, though not necessarily the actual murderer, must die the death.

This is known as the principle of collective responsibility; and one of the most interesting problems relating to the evolution of early law is to work out how individual responsibility gradually develops out of collective, until at length, even as each man does, so likewise he suffers.
The collective method of settling one's grievances is natural enough, when men are united into groups bound together by the closest of sentimental ties, and on the other hand there is no central and impartial authority to arbitrate between the parties.