An eye for an eye...and no more

It is important to remember that the biblical precept of "an eye for an eye" contained the implicit corollary of "and no more."  Although one may, from a modern perspective, view such retributive justice as crude, it was nevertheless a step in the direction of justice at its time, when blood-feuds prevailed.  The precept "an eye for an eye" demands that the punishment be commensurate to the crime, that the victim not seek to remedy the offense by exacting greater suffering from the offender, that the act of retribution be merely like the settling of debts, for to seek to inflict greater suffering, to demand a full body as compensation for the taken eye, would lead to a vicious cycle of retribution and pain with no conceivable end.