{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43466/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43466","id":"gutenberg_43466","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43466","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Criminals","Free will and determinism"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOT GUILTY:\n\nA DEFENCE OF THE BOTTOM DOG\n\nBy Robert Blatchford\n\nNEW YORK: BONI AND LIVERIGHT: 1918\n\nDedicated to my Old Friend & Fellow Worker W.T. WILKINSON\n\n\n\n\nTHE AUTHOR'S APOLOGY\n\nTHIS is not a stiff and learned work, written by a professor for\nprofessors, but a human book, written in humanity's behalf by a man, for\nmen and women.\n\nI shall not fret you with strange and stilted language, nor weary\nyou with tedious and irksome science, nor gall you with far-fetched\ntheories, nor waste your time in any vain word-twisting nor splitting of\nhairs.\n\nA plain-dealing man, speaking frankly and simply to honest and\nplain-dealing readers, I shall trust to common sense and common\nknowledge and common English to make my meaning clear.\n\nI have been warned that it is easier to write a book on such a theme as\nthis than to get people to read it when written. But I am hopeful, and\nmy hope springs from the living interest and deep significance of the\nsubject.\n\nFor in defending the Bottom Dog I do not deal with hard science only;\nbut with the dearest faiths, the oldest wrongs, and the most awful\nrelationships of the great human family, for whose good I strive, and to\nwhose judgment I appeal.\n\nKnowing, as I do, how the hard-working and hard-playing public shun\nlaborious thinking and serious writing, and how they hate to have their\nease disturbed or their prejudices handled rudely, I still make bold to\nundertake this task, because of the vital nature of the problems I shall\nprobe.\n\nThe case for the Bottom Dog should touch the public heart to the quick,\nfor it affects the truth of our religions, the justice of our laws, and\nthe destinies of our children and our children's; children.\n\nMuch golden eloquence has been squandered in praise of the successful\nand the good; much stern condemnation has been vented upon the wicked. I\nventure now to plead for those of our poor brothers and sisters who are\naccursed of Christ and rejected.\n\nHitherto all the love, all the honours, all the applause of this? world,\nand all the rewards of heaven, have been lavished on the fortunate\nand the strong; and the portion of the unfriended Bottom Dog, in his\nadversity and weakness, has been curses, blows, chains, the gallows, and\neverlasting damnation.\n\nI shall plead, then, for those who are loathed and tortured and branded\nas the sinful and unclean; for those who have hated us and wronged us,\nand have been wronged and hated by us. I shall defend them for right's\nsake, for pity's sake, and for the benefit of society and the race.\nFor these also are of our flesh, these also have erred and gone astray,\nthese also are victims of an inscrutable and relentless Fate.\n\nIf it concerns us that the religions of the world are childish dreams,\nor nightmares; if it concerns us that penal laws and moral codes\nare survivals of barbarism and fear; if it concerns us that our most\ncherished and venerable ideas of our relations to God and to each other\nare illogical and savage, then the case for the Bottom Dog concerns us\nnearly.\n\nIf it moves us to learn that disease may be prevented, that ruin may be\naverted, that broken hearts and broken lives may be made whole; if it\ninspires us to hear how beauty may be conjured out of loathliness and\nglory out of shame; how waste may be turned to wealth and death to life,\nand despair to happiness, then the case for the Bottom Dog is a case to\nbe well and truly tried.\n\nIf man's flesh and woman's flesh are merchandise or carrion; if the\ndefiled and trampled souls of innocent children are no more to us than\nare the trodden blossoms under the feet of swine; if love lies to us and\npity is a cheat; if whips and chains and contumely and the gibbet are\nmeet for our sisters and our brothers and if dishonourable ease and\nbeggarly pride and the flatteries of fools are worthy of ourselves, then\nwe have the Yellow Press and the painted altar and the Parliamentary\nspeeches and a selfish heaven and a hell where the worm never dies; and\neverything is for the best in, this best of all possible worlds.\n\nBut because I believe \"men needs must love the highest when they see\nit,\" because I believe that the universal heart is sweet and sound,\nbecause I believe there are many who honour truth and seek happiness and\npeace for all, I do not fear to plead for the Bottom Dog, nor to ask a\npatient hearing.\n\nRightly or wrongly, happily or unhappily, but with all the sincerity of\nmy soul, I shall here deny the justice and reason of every kind of blame\nand praise, of punishment and reward--human or divine.\n\nDivine law--the law made by priests, and attributed to God--consists of\na code of rewards and punishments' for acts called good or bad. Human\nlaw--the law made by Kings and Parliaments--consists of a code of\npunishments for acts called criminal and unlawful.\n\nI claim that men should not be classified as good and bad, but as\nfortunate and unfortunate; that they should be pitied, and not blamed;\nhelped instead of being punished.\n\nI claim that since we do not hold a man worthy of praise for being born\nbeautiful, nor of blame for being born ugly, neither should we hold him\nworthy of praise for being born virtuous, nor of blame for being born\nvicious.\n\nI base this claim upon the self-evident and undeniable fact that man\nhas no part in the creation of his own nature.\n\nI shall be told this means that no man is answerable for his own acts.\n\nThat is exactly what it does mean.\n\nBut, it will be urged, every man has a free will to act as he chooses;\nand to deny that is to imperil all law and order, all morality and\ndiscipline.\n\nI deny both these inferences, and I ask the reader to hear my case\npatiently, and to judge it on its merits.\n\nLet us first test the justice of our laws, divine and human: the\nquestion of their usefulness we will deal with later.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER ONE--THE LAWS OF GOD\n\nDIVINE law says that certain acts are good, and that certain acts are\nevil; and that God will reward those who do well, and will punish those\nwho do ill. And we are told that God will so act because God is _just_.\n\nBut I claim that God _cannot_ justly punish those, who disobey, nor\nreward those who obey His laws.\n\nReligious people tell us that God is \"The Great First Cause\": that God\ncreated _all_ things--mankind, the universe, nature and all her laws.\nWho is answerable for a thing that is caused: he who causes it, or he\nwho does not cause it?\n\nHe who causes it is answerable. And God is \"The First Great Cause\" of\n_all_ things. And the cause of all things is answerable for all things.\n\nIf God created _all_ things He must have created the evil as well as the\ngood.\n\nWho, then, is responsible for good and evil? Only God, for He made them.\n\nHe who creates all is responsible for all. God created all: God is\nresponsible for all.\n\nHe who creates nothing is responsible for nothing. Man created nothing:\nman is responsible for nothing.\n\nTherefore man is not responsible for his nature, nor for the acts\nprompted by that nature.\n\nTherefore God cannot justly punish man for his acts.\n\nTherefore the Divine law, with its code of rewards and punishments, is\nnot a just law, and cannot have emanated from a just God.\n\nTherefore the Christian religion is built upon a foundation of error,\nand there are no such things as God's wrath, God's pardon; heaven or\nhell.\n\nThat argument has never been answered. But attempts have been made to\nevade it, and the plea most commonly put forward has been so gracefully\nexpressed by Mr. G. K. Chesterton that I will quote it in his own words:\n\nNow, the question round which this controversy has circled for ages is\nsimply this: Clearly God can, in the exercise of His omnipotence, give\npart of Himself to His creatures; can give His strength to the bull,\nor His beauty to the lily. Could God possibly, in the exercise of His\nomnipotence, give to one of His creatures some portion of that other\nquality of His--His originating power, His power of primal invention,\nthis making things from nothing or Himself? If God can do all things,\ncan He not make man free? Can He not give man the power to create\nactions as God creates stars? He can give His force; can He give a\nlittle of his sovereignty? Can He, in short, create a kind of little\nGod--an \"imago Dei?\"\n\nThe answer to that quaint piece of reasoning is that it begs the\nquestion. For I do not say that God cannot give to man any power He\nchooses; but that God is responsible, and man is not responsible, for\nthe nature and the acts of any power by God bestowed.\n\nIf man did not invent, nor create himself; if man did not create \"the\npower\" bestowed upon him by God; if man did not bestow that power upon\nhimself, how can man be responsible for the power or for its acts?\n\nGod not only created man; He created the material of which man was made,\nand the laws of the universe into which man was introduced.\n\nGod is the \"First Great Cause\": He created all things: the evil and the\ngood. How can God blame man for the effects of which God is the cause?\n\nFor the defeat of all Christian apologists it is not necessary for me to\nadd another word; the argument is invincible as it stands. But for the\nreader's sake it may be as well to deal rather more fully with what\nmay be to him a new and startling idea. Let us then return to Mr.\nChesterton's plea.\n\nGod is said to give to man a \"power\": a power which, Mr. Chesterton\nsays, God \"made out of Himself.\" And this power will create thoughts,\nwill create actions as God creates stars.\n\nBut we see that man cannot create the thoughts nor cause the actions\nuntil God gives him the \"power.\" Then it is the \"power\" that creates\nthe thoughts or acts. Then it is not man, but the \"power\"--the power God\nmade out of Himself and bestowed upon man--that creates the thoughts or\nacts. Then the \"power\" is a kind of lord or ruler made by God, and put\nby God over man, as a rider is placed upon a horse, or a pilot on a\nship. Then man is no more responsible for the acts or the thoughts of\nthis ruling power than a horse is responsible for the acts of a jockey,\nor a ship for the acts of a pilot.\n\nIn fact, the \"power\" given by God to man is only another name for the\n\"will of God,\" or the \"power of God\"; and if man's acts are ruled, or\ncreated, by the will or power of God, how can God justly punish man for\nthose acts?\n\nIf God created man as well as this imaginary \"power\" which God is said\nto give to man, God is responsible for the acts of both.\n\nIt is claimed by others that man is responsible to God for his acts\nbecause God gave him \"reason,\" or because God gave him a \"conscience,\"\nor because God gave him a \"will\" to choose.\n\nBut these words, \"conscience,\" \"reason,\" and \"will,\" are only other\nnames for Mr. Chesterton's imaginary \"power.\"\n\nLet us be careful to keep our thoughts quite clear and unentangled. If\nwe speak of \"will,\" or \"power,\" or \"reason,\" as a thing \"given to man,\"\nwe imply that \"will,\" or \"power,\" is a thing _outside_ of man, and not a\npart of him.\n\nHaving failed to saddle man with responsibility for himself, our\nopponents would now make him responsible for some \"power\" outside\nhimself. The simple answer is that man made neither himself nor his\npowers, and that God made man and the power given to man; therefore God\nand not man is responsible. Conscience and reason and the \"power\" are\nrulers or guides given to man by God. God made these guides or rulers.\n\nThese guides must be true guides, or false guides: they must be good or\nbad.\n\nGod is all-knowing, as well as all-powerful. Not only has He power to\ncreate at will a true guide or a false guide, but He _knows_ when He\ncreates a guide, and when He bestows that guide upon man, whether it\nwill be a true or a false guide. Therefore, when God created the reason\nor the conscience and gave it to man, He _knew_ whether the reason or\nthe conscience would guide man right or wrong. If the power made and\nbestowed by God leads man wrongly, it is leading man as God _willed_ and\n_knew_ it would lead him. How, then, can God justly blame man for the\nacts that reason or power \"creates\"?\n\nGod creates a number of good propensities, and a number of evil\npropensities, packs them up in a bundle and calls them \"man.\" Is the\nskinful of propensities created and put together by God responsible for\nthe proportion of good and evil powers it comprises?\n\nBut then Mr. Chesterton suggests that God puts over the bundle a \"power\"\nof control. That power controls man for evil: as God must have known it\nwould. Is the bundle of God's making responsible for the failure of\nthe power God made and sent to manage it? God must have known when He\ncreated and put the \"power\" in control that it would fail.\n\nTell me now, some wise philosopher, or great divine, or learned\nlogician, which is the _man?_ Is it the good propensities, or the evil\npropensities, or the power of control? And tell me how can any one or\nall of these be responsible to the God who invented them, who created\nthem, who joined them together; who made and united them, knowing they\nwould fail?\n\nHere is a grand conception of an \"all-wise,\" \"all-powerful,\" perfectly\n\"just\" God, who creates a man whom He knows _must_ do evil, gives him a\nguide who cannot make him do well, issues commands for him to act as\nGod has made it impossible for him to act, and finally punishes him for\nfailing to do what God knew from the first he was incapable of doing.\n\nAnd the world is paying millions of money, and bestowing honours and\nrewards in profusion upon the learned and wise and spiritual leaders who\nteach it to believe such illogical nonsense as the above.\n\nWhen we turn from the old idea of instantaneous creation to the new idea\nof evolution, the theories about \"God's mercy\" and \"God's wrath\" are\nstill more impossible and absurd.\n\nFor now we are to believe that God, the \"First Great Cause,\" \"in the\nbeginning\" created not man and beast, and forest and sea, and hill and\nplain, but \"matter,\" and \"force,\" and \"law.\"\n\nOut of the matter and force God made, working to the law God made, there\nslowly developed the nebul\u00e6, the suns, the planets.\n\nOut of the same matter and force, changed in form by the working of\nGod's laws, there slowly developed the single-celled jelly-like creature\nfrom which, by the working of God's laws, all other forms of life have\nsince evolved.\n\nOut of matter and force, working to God's laws, man has been evolved.\n\nIs there any step in the long march of evolution from the first creation\nof matter and force to the evolution of man, when the jelly speck, or\nthe polyp, or the fish, or the reptile, or the beast, or the ape, or the\nman, had power to change, or to assist, or to resist the working of the\nlaws God made?\n\nIs there any step in the long march of evolution, any link in the long\nchain of cause and effect, when any one of the things or beings evolved\nby law working on matter and force could by act or will of their own\nhave developed otherwise than as they did?\n\nIs it not plain that man has developed into that which he is by slow\nevolution of matter and force, through the operation of divine laws over\nwhich he had no more control than he now has over the revolution of the\nsuns in their orbits?\n\nHow, then, can we believe that man is to blame for being that which he\nis?\n\nIs there any quality of body or of mind that has not been _inevitably_\nevolved in man by the working of God's laws?\n\nYou are not going to tell me that I am answerable or blame-able for the\nnature of matter and force, nor for the operations of God's laws, are\nyou?\n\nYou will not suggest that I am responsible for the creation: so long\nago, and I so new, so weak, so small!\n\nGod, when He created matter and force and law, knew the nature of matter\nand force, and the power and purpose of law. He knew that they must work\nas He had made and meant them to work. He knew that we _must_ be as His\nagents _must_ make us.\n\nWill He punish or reward us, then, for the acts of His agents: the\nagents He made and controlled? Absurd.\n\nBut, it may be urged, \"man has a soul.\" So! He got that soul from God.\nGod made the soul and fixed its powers for good and evil.\n\nIt is the soul, then, that is responsible, is it? But the soul did not\ncreate itself, and can only act as God has ordained that it shall and\nmust act.\n\nIf man is not to blame for his own acts he is not to blame for the acts\nof his soul; and for the same reason.\n\n\"Soul,\" or \"man,\" \"reason,\" or \"conscience,\" responsibility lies with\nthe causer, and not with the thing caused.\n\nAnd God is \"The First Great Cause,\" and how then can God justly punish\nany of His creatures for being as He created them?\n\nIt is impossible. It is unthinkable. But upon this unthinkable and\nimpossible absurdity the whole code of divine laws is built.\n\nTherefore the Christian religion is untrue, and man is not responsible\nto God for his nature nor for his acts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER TWO--THE LAWS OF MAN\n\nCOMMON law and common usage all the world over hold men answerable for\ntheir acts, and blame or punish them when those acts transgress the laws\nof custom.\n\nHuman law, like the divine law, is based upon the false idea that men\nknow what is right and what is wrong, and have power to choose the\nright.\n\nHuman law, like divine law, classifies men as good and bad, and punishes\nthem for doing \"wrong.\"\n\nBut men should not be classified as good and bad, but as fortunate and\nunfortunate, as weak and strong.\n\nAnd the unfortunate and weak should not be blamed, but pitied; should\nnot be punished but helped.\n\nThe just and wise course is to look upon all wrong-doers as we look upon\nthe ignorant, the diseased, the insane, and the deformed.\n\nMany of our wrong-doers are ignorant, or diseased, or insane, or\nmentally deformed. But there are some who are base or savage by nature.\nThese should be regarded as we regard base or savage animals: as\ncreatures of a lower order, dangerous, but not deserving blame nor\nhatred. And this is the sound view, as I shall show, because these\nunhappy creatures are nearer to our brutish ancestors than other men,\nthe ancient strain of man's bestial origin cropping out in them through\nno fault of their own.\n\nReligion says man is the product of God; science says he is the product\nof \"heredity\" and \"environment.\" The difference does not matter much to\nmy case. The point is that man does not create himself, and so is not to\nblame for his nature, and, therefore, is not to blame for his acts.\n\nFor man did not help God in the act of his creation, nor did he choose\nhis own ancestors.\n\n\"What! do you mean to say that the ruffian, the libertine, and the knave\nare not to be blamed nor punished for any of the vile and cruel acts\nthey perpetrate?\" asks \"the average man.\"\n\nYes. That is what I mean. And that is not a new and startling \"craze,\"\nas many may suppose, but is a piece of very ancient wisdom; as old as\nthe oldest thought of India and of Greece. In the _Bhagavad-gita_ it is\nwritten:\n\nHe sees truly who sees all actions to be done by nature alone, and\nlikewise the self not the doer.\n\nAnd Socrates said:\n\nIt is an odd thing that if you had met a man ill-conditioned in body you\nwould not have been angry; but to have met a man rudely disposed in mind\nprovokes you.\n\nNeither am I unsupported to-day in my heresies. Most theologists are\nopposed to me, but most men of science are with me: they look upon man\nas a creature of \"heredity\" and \"environment.\"\n\nWhat a man _does_ depends upon what he _is_; and what he _is_ depends\nupon his \"breed\" and his \"experience.\"\n\nWe admit that no two men are quite alike. We should not expect men who\nare unlike in nature and in knowledge to do like acts. Where the causes\nare different it is folly to expect identical effects.\n\nEvery man is that which his forbears (his ancestors) and his experiences\n(his environment) have made him. Every man's character is formed\npartly by \"heredity\" (breed, or descent) and partly by \"environment\"\n(experience, or surroundings). That is to say, his character depends\npartly upon the nature of his parents, and partly upon the nature of his\nexperience.\n\nHe comes into the world just as his ancestors have made him. He did not\nchoose his ancestors; he had nothing to do with the moulding of their\nnatures. Every quality, good or bad, in his own nature, has been handed\ndown to him by his forbears, without knowledge or consent.\n\nHow can we blame the new-born or unborn baby for the nature and\narrangement of the cells--which are _he?_\n\nBorn into the world as he was made, he is a helpless infant, dependent\nupon his nurses and his teachers. He did not choose his nurses, nor\nhis teachers; he cannot control their conduct towards him, nor test the\ntruth nor virtue of the lessons he learns from them.\n\nHe grows older the nature he inherited from his ancestors is modified,\nfor better or for worse, by the lessons and the treatment given to him\nby his nurses, his companions, and his teachers.\n\nSo, when he becomes a man he is that which his forbears and his fellow\ncreatures have made him.\n\nThat is to say, he is the product of his heredity and his environment.\nHe could not be otherwise.\n\nHow, then, can it be just to blame him for being that which he _must_\nbe?\n\nBut, it may be objected, a man has power to change, or to conquer, his\nenvironment; to train, or to subdue, his original nature.\n\nThat depends upon the strength of his original nature (which his\nancestors handed down to him) and of his environment--which consists,\nlargely, of the actions of his fellow-creatures.\n\nA man has power to do that which his forbears have made him able to do.\nHe has power to do no more.\n\nHe has certain powers given him by his forbears, which may have been\ndeveloped or repressed by his surroundings. With those powers, as\nmodified by the influences surrounding and outside himself, he may do\nall that his nature desires and is able to do. Up to the limit of his\ninherited powers he may do all that his environment (his experiences)\nhave taught or incited him to do.\n\nTo speak of a man conquering his environment is the same thing as to\nspeak of a man swimming against a stream. He can swim against the stream\nif he has strength and skill to overcome the stream. His strength is his\nheredity: his skill is the result of his environment. If his strength\nand skill are more than equal to the force of the stream he will\nconquer his environment; if the stream is too strong for him he will be\nconquered by his environment.\n\nHis acts, in short, depend wholly upon his nature and his environment:\nneither of which is of his own choosing. Of this I will say more in its\nplace.\n\nA man gets his nature from his forbears, just as certainly as he gets\nthe shape of his nose, the length of his foot, and the colour of his\neyes from his forbears.\n\nAs we do not blame a man for being born with red or black hair, why\nshould we blame him for being born with strong passions or base desires?\n\nIf it is foolish to blame a child for being born with a deformed or\nweak spine, how can it be reasonable to blame him for being born with a\ndeformed or weak brain?\n\nThe nature and quality of his hair and his eyes, of his spine and his\nbrain, of his passions and desires, were all settled _for_ and not _by_\nhim before he drew the breath of life.\n\nIf we blame a man because he has inherited fickleness from an Italian\ngrandfather, or praise him because he has inherited steadfastness from\na Dutch grandmother, we are actually praising or blaming him because,\nbefore he was born, an Italian married a Hollander.\n\nIf we blame a man for inheriting cupidity from an ancestor who was\ngreedy and rapacious, or for inheriting licentious inclinations from an\nancestor who was a rake, we are blaming him for failing to be born of\nbetter parents.\n\nBriefly, then, heredity makes, and environment modifies, a man's nature.\nAnd both these forces are _outside_ the man.\n\nTherefore man becomes that which he is by the action of forces outside\nhimself. Therefore it is unjust to blame a man for being that which he\nis. Therefore it is unjust to blame him for doing that which he does.\n\nTherefore our human laws, which punish men for their acts, are unjust\nlaws.\n\nNow, before we go fully into the meanings of the words \"heredity\" and\n\"environment,\" let us make a short summary of the arguments above put\nforth.\n\nSince man did not create his own nature, man is not responsible for his\nown acts.\n\nTherefore all laws, human or divine, which punish man for his acts are\nunjust laws.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THREE--WHERE DO OUR NATURES COME FROM?\n\nI HOPE the reader will not fight shy of heredity. I trust he will find\nit quite simple and interesting; and I promise him to use no unfamiliar\nwords, nor to trouble him with difficult and tedious scientific\nexpositions.\n\nI deal with heredity before environment, because it is needful to take\nthem one at a time, and heredity comes first; as birth before schooling.\n\nBut we must not fall into the bad habit of thinking of heredity and\nenvironment apart from each other, for it is _both_, and not either of\nthem that make man's character.\n\nIt is often said that neither heredity nor environment accounts for a\nman's conduct. And that is true. But it is true, also, that heredity\n_and_ environment account for every quality in the human \"make-up.\" A\npianist, an artist, or a cricketer is \"made as well as born,\" and so is\nevery man. A good batsman is a good batsman for two reasons: (1) He was\nborn with good sight, steady; nerves, and sound sense, all of which he\nowes to his ancestors. (2) He has been well taught, or has practised\nwell, and this practice, this endeavour to succeed, he owes to his\ninherited ambition, and to the precept and example of other men. So if\na man plays a fiddle well, or steers a ship well, or devotes his life to\ncharity, the excellence is always due to heredity _and_ environment.\nFor the cricketer would never have been a cricketer, nor the violinist\na violinist, had he been born in a country where cricket and violin\nplaying were unknown. And, on the other hand, a man bred amongst\ncricketers or musicians will never excel in music nor in cricket unless\nhe has what is called \"a gift\"; and the gift is \"heredity.\"\n\n\nNOW, WHAT DO WE MEAN BY \"HEREDITY\"?\n\nHeredity is \"descent,\" or \"breed.\" Heredity, as the word is here used,\nmeans those qualities which are handed down from one generation to the\nnext. It means those qualities which a new generation inherits from the\ngeneration from whom it descends.\n\nIt means all that \"is bred in the bone.\" If a man inherits a Grecian\nnose, a violent temper, well-knit muscles, a love of excitement, or a\ngood ear for music, from his father or mother, that quality or feature\nis part of his heredity. It is \"bred in him.\"\n\nEvery quality a child possesses at the moment of birth, _every_ quality\nof body or of mind, is inherited from his parents and their ancestors.\nAnd the whole of those qualities--which _are_ the child--are what we\ncall \"heredity.\"\n\nNo child brings into the world one single quality of body or mind that\nhas not been handed down to it by its ancestors.\n\nAnd yet no two children are exactly alike, and no child is exactly like\nany one of its forbears.\n\nThis difference of children from each other and from the parent stock is\ncalled \"variation.\"\n\nHundreds of books and papers have been written about \"variation,\" and\nto read some of them one might suppose variation to be a very difficult\nsubject. But it is quite simple, and will not give us any trouble at\nall. Let us see.\n\n\nWHY WE ARE NOT ALL ALIKE\n\nThe cause of variation can be easily understood.\n\nVariation is due to the fact that every child has two parents. If these\ntwo parents were exactly alike, and if their ancestors had been all\nexactly alike, their children would be exactly like each other and like\ntheir parents.\n\nBut the father and mother are of different families, of different\nnatures, and perhaps of different races. And the ancestors of the father\nand mother--millions in number--were all different from each other in\nnature and in descent.\n\nNow, since a child inherits some qualities from its father and some from\nits mother, it follows that if the father and mother are different from\neach other, the child must differ from both, and yet resemble both.\nFor he will inherit from the father qualities which the mother has\nnot inherited from her ancestors, and he will inherit from the mother\nqualities which the father did not inherit from his ancestors. So the\nchild will resemble both parents, without being an exact copy of either.\nIt \"varies\" from both parents by inheriting from each.\n\nThe child of a black and a white parent is what we call a half-caste: he\nis neither a negro nor a white man. The pup of a bulldog and a terrier\nis neither a bull-dog nor a terrier; he is a bull-terrier terrier.\n\nBut heredity goes farther than that, and variation is more complex than\nthat.\n\nWe must not think of a man as inheriting from his father and mother\nonly. He inherits from the parents of both his parents; and from\nthousands of ancestors before those. He inherits from men and women\nwho died thousands of years before he was born. He inherits from the\ncave-man, from the tree-man, from the ape-man, from the ape, and from\nthe beast before the ape.\n\nThe child in the womb begins as a cell, and develops through the stages\nof evolution, becoming an embryo worm, fish, quadruped, ape, and,\nfinally, a human baby.\n\nThe child is born with the bodily and mental qualities inherited from\nmany generations of beasts and many generations of men.\n\nAny one of the many ancient qualities of mind or body may crop up again\nin a modern child. Children have been born with tails: children have\nbeen born with six nipples, like a dog, instead of with two, like a\nhuman being.\n\nAnd now I will explain, simply and briefly, what we mean by the word\n\"Atavism.\"\n\n\nWHY THE CLOCK OF DESCENT SOMETIMES GOES BACKWARD\n\n\"Atavism,\" or \"breeding back,\" or \"reversion,\" may reach back through\nthousands of generations, and some trait of the cave-man, or the beast,\nmay reappear in a child of Twentieth Century civilisation.\n\nDarwin, in _The Descent of Man_, Chapter II, gives many instances\nof \"atavism,\" or breeding back, by human beings to apish and even\nquadrupedal characteristics. Alluding to a case cited by Mr. J. Wood, in\nwhich a man had seven muscles \"proper to certain apes,\" Darwin says:\n\nIt is quite incredible that a man should through mere accident\nabnormally resemble certain apes in no less than seven of his muscles,\nif there had been no genetic connection between them. On the other hand,\nif man is descended from some apelike creature, no valid reason can\nbe assigned why certain muscles should not suddenly reappear after\nan interval of many thousand generations, in the same manner as with\nhorses, asses, and mules, dark-coloured stripes suddenly reappear on the\nlegs and shoulders after an interval of hundreds, or, more probably, of\nthousands of generations.\n\nDr. Lydston, in The Diseases of Society (Lippincott: 1904) says:\n\nThe outcropping of ancestral types of mentality is observed to underlie\nmany of the manifestations of vice and crime. These ancestral types\nor traits may revert farther back even than the savage progenitors of\ncivilised man, and approximate those of the lower animals who, in their\nturn, stand behind the savage in the line of descent.\n\nThis \"reversion to older and lower types,\" or \"breeding back,\" is\nimportant, because it is the source of much crime--the origin of very\nmany \"Bottom Dogs,\" as we shall see. But at present we need only notice\nthat heredity, or breed, reaches back through immense distances of time;\nso that a man inherits not only from savage ancestors, but also from\nthe brutes. And man has no power to _choose_ his breed, has no choice of\nancestors, but must take the qualities of body and mind they hand down\nto him, be those qualities good or bad.\n\nDescent, or breed, does not work regularly. Any trait of any ancestor,\nbeast or man, near or remote, may crop up suddenly in any new\ngeneration. A child may bear little likeness to its father or mother: it\nmay be more like its great-grandfather, its uncle, or its aunt.\n\nIt is as though every dead fore-parent back to the dimmest horizon of\ntime, were liable to put a ghostly finger in the pie, to mend or mar it.\n\nLet us now use a simple illustration of the workings of heredity,\nvariation, and atavism, or breeding back.\n\nThere is no need to trouble ourselves with the scientific explanations.\nWhat we have to understand is that children inherit qualities from their\nancestors; that children vary from their ancestors and from each\nother; and that old types or old qualities may crop out suddenly and\nunexpectedly in a new generation. Knowing, as we do, that children\ninherit from their parents and fore-parents, the rest may be made, quite\nplain without a single scientific word.\n\nIn our illustration we will take for parents and children bottles, and\nfor hereditary qualities beads of different colours.\n\n\nTHE MYSTERY OF DESCENT MADE EASY\n\nNow, take a bottle of red beads, and call it male. Take a bottle of blue\nbeads, and call it female.\n\nFrom each bottle take a portion of beads; mix them in a third bottle and\ncall it \"child.\"\n\nWe have now a child of a red father and a blue mother; and we find that\nthis child is not all red, nor all blue, but part red and part blue.\n\nIt is like the father, for it has red beads; it is like the mother, for\nit has blue beads.\n\nIt is unlike the father, for the father has no blue, and it is unlike\nthe mother, for the mother has no red.\n\nHere we have a simple illustration of \"heredity\" and \"variation.\"\n\nNow, could we blame the \"child\" bottle for having red and blue beads\nin it; or could we blame the \"child\" bottle for having no yellow and no\ngreen beads in it?\n\nBut that is an example of a simple mixture of two ancestral strains. We\nhave to do with mixtures of millions of strains.\n\nLet us carry our illustration forward another generation.\n\nTake our blue and red \"child\" and marry him to the child of a black\nbottle and a yellow bottle.\n\nThis gives us a marriage between Red-Blue and Black-Yellow.\n\nThe \"child\" bottle mixed from these two bottles of double colours will\ncontain four colours.\n\nHe will \"inherit\" from grandfather Red and grandmother Blue, from\ngrandfather Black and grandmother Yellow, and from father Red-Blue and\nmother Black-Yellow.\n\nHe will be like the six fore-parents, but different from each of them.\n\nCan we blame this \"child\" bottle for being made up of red, blue, black,\nand yellow? Can we blame it for having no purple nor white beads in its\ncomposition? No. These colours were mixed _for_ the child, and not _by_\nit.\n\nHow could there be white or purple beads in this bottle, when there were\nno white nor purple beads in the bottles from which it was filled?\n\nBut what of the variation amongst brothers and sisters?\n\nThat is easily understood. If the four colours in the ancestral bottles\nare evenly mixed, the grandchildren bottles will vary from their\nancestors, but not from each other.\n\nAs we know that brothers and sisters do vary from each other, we must\nconclude that the hereditary qualities are not evenly mixed.\n\n\nWHERE DO OUR NATURES COME FROM?\n\nFor the scientific explanation of this fact I must refer you to _The\nGerm Plasm_, by Weissmann.\n\nFor our purposes it is enough to know that brothers and sisters do vary\nfrom each other, and that they so vary because the ancestral qualities\nare not evenly distributed amongst the \"sperms\" and the \"ova.\" On this\nhead our own knowledge and observation do not leave any room for doubt.\n\nIt is as if in the case of our marriage of Red-Blue and Black-Yellow\nthere were three child-bottles, of which one got more red and yellow,\none more blue and red, and one more yellow and blue than the others. So\nthat the three brother-bottles would differ from their fore-parents and\nfrom each other.\n\nAnd as it would be foolish to blame the second bottle for having less\nred in it than the first, so it is foolish to blame a human child for\nhaving less intellect or less industry than his brothers.\n\nIf you refer to the masterly description of the impregnation of the ova\ngiven in Haeckel's great work, _The Evolution of Man_, you will find\nthat the heredity of brothers is largely a matter of accident. See the\nplate and explanation on page 130 in the first volume.\n\nThe \"variation\" in brothers and sisters is like the variation in the\nmixing of beads in our bottles.\n\nIt is as though we made several tartan plaids of the same four colours,\nbut in different patterns.\n\nIt is like dealing hands of cards from a shuffled pack. There are four\nsuits, but one hand may be rich in clubs, another in diamonds.\n\nAnd who in a game of whist would blame his partner for holding no trumps\nin his hand? The partner could only play the trumps dealt out to him.\n\nIn no way can a child control the pre-natal shuffling or dealing of the\nancestral pack.\n\nNow, as to atavism, or breeding back. In the ancestral bottles called\nmen and women there are millions of different kinds of beads. And it\nsometimes happens that a particular kind of bead (or quality) which has\nlain dormant for a long time--perhaps for a thousand years--will crop\nup in a new mixing that goes to make a \"child-bottle,\" and so that child\nmay be less like its own parents than like some ancestor who has been\ndead and forgotten for centuries.\n\nIn the case of the man with the seven ape muscles, mentioned by Darwin,\nthe breeding back must have reached millions of years.\n\nThis \"lying doggo,\" or inactive, of some hereditary trait, may be\nlikened to the action of a kaleidoscope. We do not see all the fragments\nof coloured glass at every turn. But they are all there.\n\nWe do not see the same pattern twice; yet the patterns are made almost\nof the same colours and the same pieces.\n\nAnd now I think we have got a clear idea of the meanings of the words\n\"heredity,\" \"variation,\" and \"atavism,\" and the most timid reader will\nnot be afraid of them any more.\n\nThere is no need, for our purpose, to wrestle with severe science. The\nreader may find for himself all about \"pangenesis\" in Darwin, and about\nthe \"germ plasm\" in Weissmann. Here we will not tax our memories\nwith such weird words as \"biophors,\" \"gemmules,\" \"ids,\" \"idents,\" and\n\"determinants.\" Our similes of beads, tartans, and cards will serve us\nwell enough.\n\nThe only objection to our similes is that they are too simple.\n\nThe mixture of bloods in descent is very much more extensive | than our\nmixture of cards or beads.\n\nIf we trace a child's descent back only four generations we find that\nhe has no less than thirty fore-parents belonging to sixteen different\nfamilies. Another generation would reach thirty-two families. If we go\nback to twenty generations we find the number of families drawn upon to\nbe over a million.\n\nBut Darwin speaks of \"thousands of generations.\" Does not! this suggest\nthe wonderful possibilities of variation and atavism?\n\nImagine the variety of character and physique in a city like London.\nThen remember that each one of us is descended from more ancestors, and\nof much wider varieties, than all the population of London. And to hold\na man answerable for his inheritance from those motley myriads of men\nand women is to hold him answerable for the natures and the actions of\nmillions of human beings whom he never saw, of whom he never heard.\n\nWe all know that the different races of men differ from each other in\ncolour, in features, and in capacity. We have only to think for a little\nof the Japanese, the Americans, the Spaniards, and the Swedes, to feel\nthe full force of the term \"racial characteristics.\"\n\nWe know that there is a great difference between the Irish and the\nScotch. We know that there is a great difference between the Italians\nand the Dutch. We know the strongly marked peculiarities of the Jews and\nthe Greeks.\n\nNow, to blame a man for his nature is to blame him for not being like\nsome other man. And how absurd it would be to blame a Norwegian for not\nbeing like a Jew, or a Gascon for not being like a Scot.\n\n\n\nThe Italians are wayward and impulsive: the Dutch are steadfast and\ncautious. Is it reasonable to blame the one for not being like the\nother?\n\nIf a child is born of an Italian father and an Irish mother, is it\nreasonable to expect that child to be as cool and methodical as the\nchild of Dutch and Scottish parents?\n\nIs it not the same with personal as with racial traits?\n\nWe have all heard of \"Spanish pride,\" and of \"Irish wit\"; we have all\nheard of the pride of the Howards, and the genius of the Bachs.\n\nTo blame a Spaniard for being proud is to blame him for being born of\nSpanish parents. To blame a Howard for his pride is to blame him for\nbeing a son of the Howards.\n\nBach was a musical genius, Sheridan was witty, Nelson was brave,\nRembrandt was a great painter, because there were golden beads in their\nancestral bottles. But _they_ did not put the golden beads there. They\ninherited them, as Lord Tomnoddy inherits his lands, his riches, and his\nplentiful lack of wit.\n\nWe should not expect the daughter of Carmen to be like the daughter\nof Jeannie Deans, nor the son of Rawdon Crawley to be like the son of\nParson Adams. We should, indeed, no more think of praising a man for\ninheriting the genius or the virtues of his ancestors, than we should\nthink of praising a man for inheriting his parents' wealth.\n\nWe have laughed over the Gilbertian satire on our patriotic\nboastfulness:\n\n     For he himself has said it,\n     And it's greatly to his credit,\n     That he is an Englishman.\n     He might have been a Rooshian,\n     A Frenchman, Turk, or Prooshian,\n     Or even Italian;\n     But in spite of all temptations\n     To belong to other nations,\n     He remains an Englishman.\n\nAll of us can feel the point of those satirical lines; but some of\nus have yet to learn that a man can no more help being born \"good\" or\n\"bad,\" \"smart\" or \"dull,\" than he can help being born English, French,\nor Prooshian, or \"even Italian.\"\n\nSome of our ancestors conquered at Hastings, and some of them did not\nSome of our ancestors held the pass at Thermopylae, and others ran away\nat Bunker's Hill. Some were saints, and some were petty larcenists; some\nwere philosophers, and some were pirates; some were knights and some\nwere savages; some were gentle ladies, some were apes, and some were\nhogs. And we inherit from them all.\n\nWe are all of us great-great-grandchildren of the beasts. We carry the\nbestial attributes in our blood: some more, some less. Who amongst us\nis so pure and exalted that he has never been conscious of the bestial\ntaint? Who amongst us has not fought with wild beasts--not at Ephesus,\nbut in his own heart?\n\nSome of our ancestors wore tails! Is it strange that some of our\ndescendants should have what Winwood Reade called \"tailed minds\"? The\nghosts of old tragedies haunt the gloomy vestibules of many human minds.\nThe Bottom Dog may often be possessed of ancestral devils.\n\nHe that is without inherited taint among us, let him cast the first\nstone.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FOUR--THE BEGINNINGS OF MORALS\n\nWHAT do we mean by the words \"sin\" and \"vice,\" and \"crime\"?\n\nSin is disobedience of the laws of God.\n\nCrime is disobedience of the laws of men.\n\nVice is disobedience of the laws of nature.\n\nI say that there is no such thing as a known law of God: that the\nso-called laws of God were made by men in God's name, and that therefore\nthe word \"sin\" need trouble us no more. There is no such thing as sin.\n\nI say that since there are bad laws as well as good laws, a crime may\nbe a good instead of a bad act. For though it is wrong to disobey a good\nlaw, it may be right to disobey a bad law.\n\nAnd now what do we mean by the words \"good\" and \"bad,\" \"moral\" and\n\"immoral\"?\n\nWe call an act good when it \"makes good\"; when its effects are\nbeneficial. We call an act bad when it \"makes bad\"; when its effects are\ninjurious.\n\nWhat are \"morals\"? My dictionary says, \"the doctrine of man's moral\nduties _and social relations_\"; and in Crabbe's _Synonyms_ I find: \"By\nan observance of good morals we _become good members of society_.\"\n\nThe italics are mine. Morals are the standard of social conduct. All\nimmoral conduct is anti-social, and all anti-social conduct is immoral.\n\nIf there were only one man in the world he could not act immorally, for\nthere would be no other person whom his acts could injure or offend.\n\nWhere two persons live together either may act immorally, for he may so\nact as to injure or offend his companion.\n\nAny act is immoral and wrong which needlessly injures a fellow creature.\nBut no act is immoral or wrong which does not directly or indirectly\ninflict needless injury upon any fellow creature.\n\nI say, \"needless injury\"; for it may sometimes be right and necessary to\ninjure a fellow creature.\n\nIf it is wrong to inflict needless injury upon our fellows, it is right\nto defend our fellows and ourselves from the attacks of those who would\nneedlessly injure us.\n\nAny act which inflicts \"needless\" injury upon a fellow creature is\nimmoral; but no act which does not inflict needless injury upon a fellow\ncreature is immoral.\n\nThat is the root of my moral code. It may at first seem insufficient,\nbut I think it will be found to reach high enough, wide enough, and deep\nenough to cover all true morality. For there is hardly any act a man can\nperform which does not affect a fellow creature.\n\nFor instance, if a man takes to drink, or neglects his health, he\ninjures others as well as himself. For he becomes a less agreeable and a\nless useful member of society. He takes more from the common stock, and\ngives back less. He may even become an eyesore, or a danger, or a burden\nto his fellows. A cricketer who drank, or neglected to practise, would\nbe acting as immorally towards the rest of the team as he would if\nhe fielded carelessly or batted selfishly. Because, speaking morally, a\nman belongs not only to himself, but also to the whole human race.\n\n\nWHERE DID MORALS COME FROM?\n\nMorals do not come by revelation, but by evolution. Morals are not based\nupon the commands of God, but upon the nature and the needs of man. Our\nchurches attribute the origin of morals to the Bible. But the Egyptians\nand Babylons had moral codes before Moses was born or the Bible written.\nThousands of years, tens of thousands of years, perhaps millions of\nyears before Abraham, there were civilisations and moral codes.\n\nEven before the coming of man there were the beginnings of morals in the\nanimal world.\n\nWhen I was a boy, we were taught that acts were right or wrong as they\nwere pleasing or displeasing to the God of the Hebrew Bible.\n\nThere were two kinds of men--good men and bad men. The good men might\nexpect to succeed in business here and go to heaven hereafter. The bad\nmen were in peril of financial frosts in this world, and of penal fires\nin the world to come.\n\nAs I grew older and began to think for myself, I broke from that\nteaching, and at last came to see that all acts were wrong which caused\nneedless injury to others; that the best and happiest man was he\nwho most earnestly devoted himself to making others happy; that\nall wrong-doing sprang from selfishness, and all welldoing from\nunselfishness; that all moral acts were social acts, and all immoral\nacts unsocial acts; and that therefore Socialism was good, and\nIndividualism was evil.\n\nBut as to the beginning of the social virtues I was puzzled.\n\nIn most religions morality is supposed to have been established by\ndivine revelation. Men did not know right from wrong until God gave them\ncodes of laws ready-made; and even after men had the divine laws given\nto them they were by nature so depraved that they could only obey those\nlaws by the special grace of God.\n\nThe idea that morality was slowly built up by evolution was first given\nto the world by Spencer and Darwin. It has since been elaborated by\nother writers, notably by Winwood Reade and Prince Kropotkin.\n\nThe notions of \"the struggle for existence\" and \"the survival of the\nfittest\" have been too commonly taken to mean that life in the animal\nworld is one tragic series of ruthless single combats; that every man's\nhand always was and ever must be against the hand of every man, and\nevery beast's tooth and claw against the tooth and claw of every beast.\n\nBut if we read Darwin's _Descent of Man_ and Prince Kropotkin's _Mutual\nAid Among Animals_ and Winwood Reade's _Martyrdom of Man_, we shall\nfind that the law of natural selection does not favour any such horrible\nconclusions.\n\nSelf-preservation may be the first law of nature; but it is not the last\nlaw of nature. In union is strength. The gregarious animals--those which\nlive in communities of flocks and herds--as the apes, the deer, the\nrooks, the bees, the bison, the swallows, and the wolves, gain by mutual\naid in the struggle for existence, for, by reason of their numbers\nand their union, they are better able to watch for the approach and to\ndefeat the attacks of their enemies.\n\nFrom this union and mutual aid of the gregarious animals arose the\nsocial instincts.\n\nThe sociable animals would doubtless be first drawn together partly for\nsafety and partly for company.\n\nSheep, deer, buffalo, wild dogs, ants, rooks, and other social animals\nenjoy the companionship of their own kind. They play together, feed\ntogether, sleep together, hunt together, and help each other to evade or\nresist their common foes. They share in social pleasures, and practise\nsome of the social virtues.\n\nAnd as the more sociable animals would be safest, and the less sociable\nanimals most exposed to danger, natural selection would tend to raise\nthe level of sociability, because the stock would be bred more from\nsociable than from unsociable animals.\n\nThe apes are social animals, and also imitative animals. The ape-like\nforbears of man would unite for safety and for society, and, being\nimitative, would observe and copy any invention or discovery due to\nlucky accident or to the sharper wits amongst their number.\n\nLike the lower animals, they would play together, feed together, fight\nin companies, defend or rescue their young, and post sentinels to watch\nfor the approach of danger.\n\nLong before man had thought of any ghost or God, some rude form of order\nand morality would exist in the families and tribes of men, as some rude\nform of order and morality exists to-day amongst the wild elephants, the\nbees, the deer, and other creatures.\n\nI once saw two horses fighting in a field. A third and older horse came\nup and parted them, and then drove them away in opposite directions.\nSo in the earliest human tribes would the leaders prevent brawling and\nexact obedience.\n\nPartly from such action, and partly from the training of the young,\nwould be formed the habit of resenting and of punishing certain unsocial\nacts which the herd or tribe felt to be opposed to the general welfare.\n\nOne of the first faults man would brand as immoral would be cowardice.\nOne of the earliest moral laws would, perhaps, resemble the Viking law\nthat men who proved cowards in battle should be buried in the swamp\nunder a hurdle.\n\nImitation, habit, natural selection, and the love of approbation, would\nall tend to fix and improve these crude customs, and from these simple\nbeginnings would grow up laws and morals and conscience.\n\nVery likely the earliest human groups were family groups, or clans.\nThese clans would fight against other clans.\n\nThe next step may have been the union of clans into tribes, and the next\nthe banding of tribes into nations.\n\nAt present men are mostly united as nations. Each nation has its own\nlaws, its own morality, and its own patriotism, and the different\nnations are more or less hostile to each other; as formerly were the\ntribes or clans.\n\nThe final triumph will be the union of the nations in one brotherhood,\nand the abolition of war.\n\n\nThe red Indian does not think it immoral to murder an Indian of another\ntribe. The European does not think it immoral to kill thousands of men\nin battle. The evolution of morality has not yet carried us as far as\nuniversal peace. Nor has any revelation of God forbidden war.\n\nWe do not need to think long, nor to look far to see that different\nconditions have evolved different moral codes.\n\nBut all morals may be divided into two classes: True Morals and\nArtificial Morals.\n\nTrue morals are all founded on the rule that it is wrong to cause\nneedless injury to any fellow-creature.\n\nArtificial morals are those morals invented by priests, kings, lawyers,\npoets, soldiers, and philosophers.\n\nMoral codes made by rulers, or by ruling classes, are generally founded\non expediency; and expediency, as understood by the rulers or the ruling\nclasses, usually means those things that are expedient for themselves.\n\nNow that which is expedient for a king, a tyrant, or an aristocracy may\nbe far from expedient for the people over whom they rule. So we need not\nbe surprised to find that many of the laws of barbarous and civilised\nnations are immoral laws. Our British game laws, land laws, poor laws,\nand very many of the criminal laws, and the laws relating to property,\nare immoral laws.\n\nBut there is no revelation of God condemning those laws. Nor does any\nEuropean church oppose those laws, nor denounce them as immoral.\n\nThen as to public opinion--our unwritten moral code--there is no clear\nand logical system of moral principles. For instance, the public think\nit a pity that men should be out of work, that women should starve, that\nlittle children should be sent to school unwashed and unfed. But the\npublic do not think these things immoral. The fact is, the British\npeople, after more than a thousand years of Christian teaching, do\nnot know what true morality is. And how should they know, when their\nteachers in the church do not know?\n\nThe churches have always drawn their morality from the Bible, and\nhave always tried to fit it in with the immoral codes made by kings,\nsoldiers, landlords, money-lenders, and other immoral persons.\n\nThe Church has often pleaded for \"charity\" to the poor, but has never\ncome to the rescue of the \"Bottom Dog\"; because the churches have never\nunderstood morality nor human nature.\n\nIt is science, and not the revelation of God, nor the teaching of\npriests, that has enabled us to begin to understand human nature, and\nhas made it possible to build up a systematic code of true morality.\n\nAs to what morality is, I claim it is the rule of social conduct: the\nmeasure of right conduct between man and man; and I shall build up my\nwhole case upon the simple moral rule that \"every act is immoral which\nneedlessly injures any fellow-creature.\" This rule is only an old truth\nin a new form. It is, indeed, just a modern reading of the \"Golden\nRule.\" It is not the rule itself, but the use I shall put it to, that is\nlikely to flutter certain moral dovecotes. As to the rule, the teachings\nof most great moralists, of all times and nations, go to prove it. As,\nfor instance:\n\nLao Tze, a Chinese moralist, before Confucius, said: \"The good I would\nmeet with goodness, the not-good I would also meet with goodness.\"\n\nConfucius, Chinese moralist, said: \"What you do not want done to\nyourself, do not do to others.\"\n\nHe also said: \"Benevolence is to be in one's most inward heart in\nsympathy with all things; to love all men; and to allow no selfish\nthoughts.\"\n\nThe same kind of teaching is found in the Buddhist books, and in the\nrock edicts of King Asoka. Here is a Buddhist precept, which has a\nspecial interest as touching the _origin_ of morals.\n\n\"Since even animals can live together in mutual reverence, confidence,\nand courtesy, much more should you, O brethren, so let your light shine\nforth that you may be seen to dwell in like manner together.\"\n\nThe Hebrew moralists often sounded the same note. In Leviticus we find:\n\"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.\"\n\nIn Proverbs: \"If thine enemy be hungry give him bread to eat, and if he\nbe thirsty give him water to drink.\"\n\nIn the Talmud it is written: \"Do not unto others that which it would\nbe disagreeable to you to suffer yourself; that is the main part of the\nlaw.\"\n\nWe have the same idea expressed by Christ: \"All things therefore\nwhatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also\nunto them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.\" Sextus, a teacher of\nEpictetus, said: \"What you wish your neighbours to be to you, such be\nalso to them.\"\n\nIsocrates said: \"Act towards others as you desire others to act towards\nyou.\"\n\nKing Asoka said: \"I consider the welfare of all people as something for\nwhich I must work.\"\n\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF MORALS\n\nIn the Buddhist \"Kath\u00e2 Sarit S\u00e2gara\" it is written: \"Why should we cling\nto this perishable body? In the eye of the wise the only thing it is\ngood for is to benefit one's fellow creatures.\" And another Buddhist\nauthor expresses the same idea with still more force and beauty: \"Full\nof love for all things in the world, practising virtue in order to\nbenefit others--this man alone is happy.\"\n\nBut even when the moralists did not lay down the \"Golden Rule,\" they\ntaught that the cause of sin and of suffering was selfishness; and\nthey spoke strongly against self-pity, and self-love, and\nself-aggrandisement.\n\nWhat is the lesson of Buddha, and of the Indian, Persian, and Greek\nmoralists? Buddha went out into the world to search for the cause of\nhuman sin and sorrow. He found the cause to be self-indulgence and the\ncure to be self-conquest. \"The cause of pain,\" he said, \"is desire.\"\nAnd this lesson was repeated over and over again by Socrates, Plato,\nEpictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Plutarch, and Seneca..\n\nThe moral is that selfishness is bad, and unselfishness is good. And\nthis moral is backed by the almost universal practice of all men in all\nages and of all races in testing or weighing the virtue or the value of\nany person's conduct.\n\nWhat is the common assay for moral gold? The test of the _motive_. Sir\nGorgio Midas has given \u00a3100,000 to found a Midas hospital. What says\nthe man in the street? \"Ah! fine advertisement for the Midas pills!\" Mr.\nQueech, the grocer and churchwarden, has given \u00a35 to the new Methodist\nSunday School. \"H'm!\" says the cynical average man, \"a sprat to catch a\nmackerel.\" Sir Norman Conquest, Bart, M.P., has made an eloquent speech\nin favour of old-age pensions. Chigwin, the incorruptible, remarks with\na sniff that \"it looks as if there would soon be a General Election.\"\n\nWhat do these gibes mean? They mean that the benevolence of Messrs.\nMidas, Queech, and Conquest is inspired by selfishness, and therefore is\nnot worthy, but base.\n\nNow, when a gang of colliers go down a burning pit to save life, or when\na sailor jumps overboard in a storm to save a drowning fireman, or when\na Russian countess goes to Siberia for trying to free the Russian serfs,\nthere is no sneer heard. Chigwin's fierce eye lights up, the man in the\nstreet nods approvingly, and the average man in the railway compartment\nobserves sententiously:\n\n\"That's pluck.\"\n\nWell. Is it not clear that these acts are approved and held good? And is\nit not clear that they are held to be good because they are felt to be\nunselfish?\n\nNow, I make bold to say that in no case shall we find a man or woman\nhonoured or praised by men when his conduct is believed to be selfish.\nIt is always selfishness that men scorn. It is always self-sacrifice or\nunselfish service they admire. This shows us that deep in the universal\nheart the root idea of morality is social service. This is not a divine\ntruth: it is a human truth.\n\nSelfishness has come to be called \"bad\" because it injures the many\nwithout benefiting the one. Unselfishness has come to be called \"good\"\nbecause it brings benefit and pleasure to one and all. \"It is twice\nbless'd: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes.\" As Marcus\nAurelius expresses it: \"That which is not for the interest of the whole\nswarm is not for the interest of a single bee.\" And again he puts\nit: \"Mankind are under one common law; and if so they must be\nfellow-citizens, and belong to the same body politic. From whence it\nwill follow that the whole world is but one commonwealth.\"\n\nAnd Epictetus, the Greek slave, said that as \"God is the father of all\nmen, then all men are brothers.\"\n\nFor countless ages this notion of human brotherhood, and of the evil of\nself-love, has been to morality what the sap is to the tree. And now let\nus think once more how the notion first came into being.\n\nI said that morality--which is the knowledge of good and evil--did not\ncome by revelation from God, but by means of evolution. And I said that\nthis idea was first put forth by Spencer and Darwin, and afterwards\ndealt with by other writers.\n\nDarwin's idea was two-fold. He held that man inherited his social\ninstincts (on which morality is built) from the lower animals; and he\nthought that very likely the origin of the social instinct in animals\nwas the relation of the parents to their young. Let us first see what\nDarwin said.\n\nIn Chapter Four of _The Descent of Man_ Darwin deals with \"moral sense.\"\nAfter remarking that, so far as he knows, no one has approached the\nquestion exclusively from the side of natural history, Darwin goes on:\n\nThe following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable--namely,\nthat any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts,\nthe parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably\nacquire a moral sense, or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers\nhad become as well, or nearly as well, developed as in man.\n\nFor, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in\nthe society of its fellows, and feel a certain amount of sympathy with\nthem, and to perform various services for them....\n\nEvery one must have noticed how miserable dogs, horses, sheep, etc., are\nwhen separated from their companions, and what strong mutual affection\nthe two former kinds, at least, shown on their reunion....\n\nAll animals living in a body, which defend themselves or attack their\nenemies in concert, must indeed be in some degree faithful to one\nanother; and those that follow a leader must be in some degree obedient.\nWhen the baboons in Abyssinia plunder a garden, they silently follow a\nleader, and if an imprudent young animal makes a noise, he receives a\nslap from the others to teach him silence and obedience....\n\nWith respect to the impulse which leads certain animals to associate\ntogether, and to aid one another in many ways, we may infer that in most\ncases they are impelled by the same sense of satisfaction or pleasure\nwhich they experience in performing other instinctive actions....\n\nIn however complex a manner this feeling (sympathy) may have originated,\nas it is one of high importance to all those animals which aid and\ndefend one another, it will have been increased through natural\nselection for those communities which included the greatest number of\nsympathetic members would flourish best and rear the greatest number of\noffspring....\n\nThus the social instincts, which must have been acquired by man in a\nvery rude state, and probably even by his early apelike progenitors,\nstill give the impulse to some of his best actions; but his actions are\nin a higher degree determined by the expressed wishes and judgment of\nhis fellow-men, and unfortunately very often by his own strong selfish\ndesires.\n\nThose quotations should be enough to show Darwin's idea of the origin\nof the social, or moral, feelings. But I shall quote besides Haeckel's\ncomment on Darwin's theory.\n\nSpeaking of the \"Golden Rule\" in his _Confessions of Faith of a Man of\nScience_, Haeckel says:\n\nIn the human family this maxim has always been accepted as self-evident;\nas ethical instinct it was an inheritance derived from our animal\nancestors. It had already found a place among the herds of apes and\nother social mammals; in a similar manner, but with wider scope, it was\nalready present in the most primitive communities and among the hordes\nof the least advanced savages. Brotherly love--mutual support, succour,\nprotection, and the like--had already made its appearance among\ngregarious animals as a social duty; for without it, the continued\nexistence of such societies is impossible. Although at a later period,\nin the case of man, these moral foundations of society came to be much\nmore highly developed, their oldest prehistoric source, as Darwin has\nshown, is to be sought in the social instincts of animals. Among the\nhigher vertebrates (dogs, horses, elephants, etc.), the development\nof social relations and duties is the indispensable condition of their\nliving together in orderly societies. Such societies have for man also\nbeen the most important instrument of intellectual and moral progress.\n\nThere is a very able article in the March, 1905, issue of the\n_Nineteenth Century_, by Prince Kropotkin, the author of _Mutual Aid_,\non Darwin's theory of the origin of the moral sense, in which the\nstriking suggestion is made that primitive man, besides inheriting from\nanimals the social instinct, also copied from them the first rudiments\nof tribal union and mutual aid. This notion may be gathered from the\nfollowing picturesque passages:\n\nPrimitive man lived in close intimacy with animals. With some of them he\nprobably shared the shelters under the rocks, occasionally the caverns,\nand very often food....\n\nOur primitive ancestors lived _with_ the animals, in the midst of them.\nAnd as soon as they began to bring some order into their observations\nof nature, and to transmit them to posterity, the animals and their life\nsupplied them with the chief materials for their unwritten encyclopaedia\nof knowledge, as well as for their wisdom, which they expressed in\nproverbs and sayings. Animal psychology was the first psychology man was\naware of--it is still a favourite subject of talk at the camp fires;\nanimal life, closely interwoven with that of man, was the subject of\nthe very first rudiments of art, inspiring the first engravers and\nsculptors, and entering into the composition of the most ancient epical\ntraditions and cosmogonic myths....\n\nThe first thing which our children learn in natural history is something\nabout the beasts of prey--the lions and the tigers; But the first\nthing that primitive savages must have learned about nature was that\nit represents a vast agglomeration of animal clans and tribes; the\nape tribe, so nearly related to man, the ever-prowling wolf tribe, the\nknowing, chattering bird tribe, the ever-busy insect tribe, and on. For\nthem the animals were an extension of their own kin--only so much wiser\nthan themselves. And the first vague generalisation which men must\nhave made about nature--so vague as to hardly differ from a mere\nimpression--was that the living being and his clan or tribe are\ninseparable. _We_ can separate them--_they_ could not; and it seems even\ndoubtful whether they could _think_ of life otherwise than within a clan\nor a tribe....\n\nAnd that man who had witnessed once an attack of wild dogs, or dholes,\nupon the biggest beasts of prey, certainly realised, once and for ever,\nthe irresistible force of the tribal unions, and the confidence and\ncourage with which they inspire every individual. Man made divinities of\nthese dogs, and worshipped them, trying by all sorts of magic to acquire\ntheir courage.\n\nIn the prairies and the woods our earliest ancestors saw myriads of\nanimals, all living in clans and tribes. Countless herds of red deer,\nfallow deer, reindeer, gazelles, and antelopes, thousands of droves of\nbuffaloes and legions of wild horses, wild donkeys, quaggas, zebras, and\nso on, were moving over the boundless plains, peacefully grazing side\nby side. Even the dreary plateaus had their herds of llamas and wild\ncamels. And when man approached these animals, he soon realised how\nclosely connected all these beings were in their respective droves or\nherds. Even when they seemed fully absorbed in grazing, and apparently\ntook no notice of the others, they closely watched each other's\nmovements, always ready to join in some common action. Man saw that\nall the deer tribe, whether they graze or merely gambol, always kept\nsentries, which never release their watchfulness and never are late to\nsignal the approach of a beast of prey; he knew how, in case of a sudden\nattack, the males and the females would encircle their young ones and\nface the enemy, exposing their lives for the safety of the feeble ones;\nand how, even with such timid creatures as the antelopes, or the fallow\ndeer, the old males would often sacrifice themselves in order to cover\nthe retreat of the herd. Man knew all that, which we ignore or easily\nforget, and he repeated it in his tales, embellishing the acts of\ncourage and self-sacrifice with his primitive poetry, or mimicking them\nin his religious tribal dances....\n\nSocial life--that is, _we_, not _I_--is, in the eyes of primitive man,\nthe normal form of life. _It is life itself_. Therefore \"we\" must have\nbeen the normal form of thinking for primitive man: a \"category\" of\nhis understanding, as Kant might have said. And not even \"we,\" which\nis still too personal, because it represents a multiplication of the\n\"_I's_,\" but rather such expression as \"the men of the beaver tribe,\"\n\"the kangaroo men,\" or \"the turtles.\" This was the primitive form of\nthinking, which nature impressed upon the mind of man.\n\nHere, in that identification, or, we might even say, in this absorption\nof the \"I\" by the tribe, lies the root of all ethical thought. The\nself-asserting \"individual\" came much later on. Even now, with the lower\nsavages, the \"individual\" hardly exists at all. It is the tribe, with\nits hard-and-fast rules, superstitions, taboos, habits, and interests,\nwhich is always present in the mind of the child of nature. And in that\nconstant, ever-present identification of the unit with the whole lies\nthe substratum of all ethics, the germ out of which all the subsequent\nconceptions of justice, and the still higher conceptions of morality,\ngrew up in the course of evolution.\n\nBesides these excellent contributions to the subject, Prince Kropotkin\ngives us other new and striking thoughts, bearing upon the parental\nsource of the social feelings indicated by Darwin. But first let us go\nback to Darwin. In Chapter Four of _The De-scent of Man_ Darwin says:\n\nThe feeling of pleasure from society is probably an extension of the\nparental or filial affections, since the social instinct seems to be\ndeveloped by the young remaining for a long time with their parents,\nand this extension may be attributed in part to habit, but chiefly to\nnatural selection. With those animals which were benefited by living in\nclose association, the individuals which took the greatest pleasure in\nsociety would best escape various dangers, whilst those that cared least\nfor their comrades, and lived solitary, would perish in greater numbers.\n\nDr. Saleeby, in the _Academy_ in the spring of 1905, had some\ninteresting remarks upon the origin of altruism. He \"finds in the breast\nof the mammalian mother the fount whence love has flowed,\" and points\nout that the higher we go in the mammalian scale the more dependent are\nthe young upon their mothers.\n\nAfter describing the helplessness of the human baby, he continues thus:\n\nYet, this is the creature which has spread over the earth so that\nhe numbers some fifteen hundred millions to-day. He is the \"lord of\ncreation,\" master of creatures bigger, stronger, fleeter, longer-lived\nthan himself. The earth is his and the fulness thereof. Yet without love\nnot one single specimen of him has a chance of reaching maturity, or\neven surviving for a week. Verily love is the greatest thing in the\nworld.\n\nWell, upon this subject of the parental origin of altruism, Prince\nKropotkin throws another light. First, alluding to Darwin's cautious\nhandling of the subject of the maternal origin of social feelings,\nPrince Kropotkin, quotes Darwin's own remarkable comment, thus:\n\nThis caution was fully justified, because in other places he pointed\nout that the social instinct must be a _separate instinct in itself_,\ndifferent from the others--an instinct which has been developed\nby natural selection _for its own sake_, as it was useful for the\nwell-being and preservation of the species. It is so fundamental,\nthat when it runs against another instinct, even one so strong as the\nattachment of the parents to their offspring, it often takes the upper\nhand. Birds, when the time has come for their autumn migration, will\nleave behind their tender young, not yet old enough for a prolonged\nflight, and follow their comrades.\n\nHe then offers the following suggestion:\n\nTo this striking illustration I may also add that the social instinct is\nstrongly developed with many lower animals, such as the land-crabs, or\nthe Molucca crab; as also with certain fishes, with whom it hardly could\nbe considered as an extension of the filial or parental feelings.\nIn these cases it appears rather an extension of the _brotherly_ or\n_sisterly_ relations or feelings of _comradeship_, which probably\ndevelop each time that a considerable number of young animals, having\nbeen hatched at a given place and at a given moment, continue to live\ntogether--whether they are with their parents or not. It would seem,\ntherefore, more correct to consider the social and the parental\ninstincts as _two_ closely connected instincts, of which the former is\nperhaps the earlier, and therefore the stronger, and which both go\nhand in hand in the evolution of the animal world. Both are favoured by\nnatural selection, which as soon as they come into conflict keeps the\nbalance between the two, for the ultimate good of the species.\n\nTo sum up all these ideas. We find it suggested that the social feelings\nfrom which morality sprang, were partly inherited by man from his animal\nancestors, partly imitated from observation of the animals he knew so\nwell in his wild life.\n\nAnd we find it suggested that these social feelings probably began\nin the love of animals for their young, and in the brotherhood and\ncomradeship of the young for each other.\n\nIt was the social feelings of men that made their Bibles: the Bibles did\nnot make the social feelings.\n\nMorality is the result of evolution, not of revelation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FIVE--THE ANCESTRAL STRUGGLE WITHIN US\n\nI HAVE spoken of the \"nature\" handed down to us by our fore-parents. I\nmight have said \"natures,\" for our inheritance, being not from one, but\nfrom many, is not simple, but compound.\n\nWe too commonly think of a man as an Englishman or a Frenchman; as a\nLondoner or a Yorkshireman; as good or bad.\n\nWe too commonly think of a man as one person, instead of as a mixture of\nmany persons. As though John Smith were _all_ John Smith, and _always_\nJohn Smith.\n\nThere is no such thing as an unmixed Englishman, Irishman, or\nYorkshireman.\n\nThere is no such thing as an unmixed John Smith.\n\nEnglishmen are bred from the Ancient Briton, from the Roman, from\nthe Piets and Scots, from the Saxons, the Danes, the Norwegians, the\nNormans, the French. All these varied and antagonistic bloods were mixed\nin centuries ago.\n\nSince then the mixing has gone on, plentifully varied by intermarriage\nwith Irish, Scots, Dutch, Germans, Belgians, French, Italians, Poles,\nand Spaniards. We have had refugees and immigrants from all parts of\nEurope. We have given homes to the Huguenots, and the Emigr\u00e9s from\nFrance, to the Lollards and Lutherans from the Netherlands, to crowding\nfugitives from Russia, Holland, Hungary, Italy, and Greece. We have\nabsorbed these foreigners and taken them into our blood. And the\ndescendants of all these mixed races are called Englishmen.\n\nThe Londoner is a mixture of all those races, and more. From every part\nof England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales; from most parts of Europe, from\nmany parts of America and Asia, and even Africa, streams of foreign\nblood have flowed in to make the Londoner.\n\nIn Yorkshire there are several distinct races, though none of them are\npure. There is one Yorkshire type bearing marks of descent from the\nNorsemen, another bearing marks of descent from the Flemish and French\nimmigrants, and another from the Normandy invaders. I have seen Vikings,\nBelgians, and Normans all playing cricket in the Yorkshire County team.\n\nIn Ireland there are Irishmen from Denmark and Norway, Irishmen from\nAncient Mongolia, and, especially in Kerry, Irishmen who seem to be of\nalmost pure Iberian type.\n\nThe Iberian Irishman is short, dark, aquiline, and sardonic, with black\nhair and eyes, and a moustache more like a Tartar's than a European's.\nThe Viking Irishman is big and burly, with blue or grey eyes, and\nreddish hair and beard; the difference between these two types is as\ngreat as that between a Saxon and a Spaniard.\n\nOne of these Irish Iberians marries a Yorkshire Dane. Their son marries\nthe daughter of a Lancashire Belgian and an Ancient Briton from Flint;\nand their children are English.\n\nAs I said just now, we think of John Smith as _all_ John Smith and\n_always_ John Smith.\n\nBut John is a mixture of millions of men and women, many of them as\ndifferent from each other as John Ridd is different from Dick Swiveller,\nor as Diana of the Crossways is different from Betsy Trotwood. And these\nuncountable and conflicting natures are not extinct: they are alive and\nbusy in the motley jumble we call John Smith.\n\nJohn is not all John. He is, a great deal of him, Roman soldier, Ancient\nBriton, Viking pirate, Flemish weaver, Cornish fisherman, Lowland\nscholar, Irish grazier, London chorus girl, Yorkshire spinner, Welsh\ndairymaid, and a host of other gentle and simple, wild and tame, gay\nand grave, sweet and sour, fickle and constant, lovable and repellent\nancestors; from his great-great-grandparent, the hairy treeman, with\nflat feet and club like a young larch, to his respectable father, the\nwhite-fronted, silk-hatted clerk in the Pudsey Penny Savings Bank.\n\nAnd, being as he is, not all John Smith, but rather the knotted,\ncrossed, and tangled mixture of Johns and Marys, and Smiths and Browns\nand Robinsons, that has been growing more dense and intricate for tens\nof thousands of years, how can we expect our good John to be always the\nsame John?\n\nWe know John is many Johns in the course of a summer's day. We have seen\nhim, possibly, skip back to the cave-man in a spasm of rage, glow\nwith the tenderness of the French lady who died of the plague in the\nFourteenth Century, and then smile the smile of the merry young soldier\nwho was shot at Dettingen--all in the time it takes him to clench and\nunclench his hand, or to feel in his pocket for a penny, or to flash a\nglance at a pretty face in the crowd.\n\nJohn Smith is not English, nor Yorkshire; but human. He is not one man;\nbut many men, and, which counts for more, many women.\n\nAnd how can we say of John Smith that he is \"good\" or \"bad\"? It is like\nsaying of a bottle of beads, mixed of fifty colours, that it is red,\nor blue. As John's ancestors were made up of good and bad, and as he is\nmade up of them, so John is good and bad in stripes or patches: is good\nand bad by turns.\n\nWe speak of these mixed natures which a man inherits from his\nfore-parents as his \"disposition\": we call them \"the qualities of\nhis mind,\" and we wonder when we find him inconsistent, changeable,\nundecided. Ought we to be surprised that the continual struggle for\nthe mastery amongst so many alien natures leads to unlooked-for and\nunwished-for results?\n\nTake the case of a council, a cabinet, a regiment, composed of\nantagonistic natures; what happens? There are disputes, confusion,\ncontradictions, cross-purposes. Well: a man is like a crowd, a\nParliament, a camp of ill-matched foreign allies. Indeed, he _is_ a\ncrowd--a crowd of alien and ill-sorted ancestors.\n\nThe Great Arteries of Human Nature\n\nBut, differ from each other as we may, there are some general\nqualities--some _human_ qualities--common to most of us.\n\nThese common qualities may be split into two kinds, selfish and\nunselfish.\n\nThe selfish instincts come down to us from our earlier brute ancestors.\n\nThe unselfish instincts come down to us from our later brute ancestors,\nand from our human ancestors.\n\nAmongst the strongest and the deepest of man's instincts are love\nof woman, love of children, love of pleasure, love of art, love of\nhumanity, love of adventure, and love of praise.\n\nI should say that the commonest and most lasting of all human passions\nis the love of praise: called by some \"love of approbation.\"\n\nFrom this great trunk impulse there spring many branches. Nearly all our\nvanities, ambitions, affectations, covetings, are born of our thirst\nfor praise. It is largely in the hope of exciting the wonder or the\nadmiration of our fellows that we toil and scramble and snatch and\nfight, for wealth, for power, for place; for masterly or daring\nachievement.\n\nNone but misers love money for its own sake. It is for what money will\nbuy that men covet it; and the most desired of the things money will buy\nare power and display: the value of which lies in the astonishment they\nwill create, and the flattery they will win.\n\nHow much meaning would remain to such proud and potent words as glory,\nriches, conquest, fame, hero, triumph, splendour, if they were bereft of\nthe glamour of human wonder and applause?\n\nWhat man will bear and do and suffer for love of woman, and woman for\nlove of man; what both will sacrifice for the sake of their children;\nhow the devotee of art and science, literature, or war, will cleave to\nthe work of his choice; with what eagerness the adventurer will follow\nhis darling bent, seeking in the ends of the earth for excitement, happy\nto gaze once more into the \"bright eyes of danger\"; with what cheerful\nsteadfastness and unwearied self-denial benevolence will labour for the\ngood of the race; is known to us all. What we should remember is that\nthese and other powers of our nature act and react upon each other: that\none impulse checks, or goads, or diverts another.\n\nThus the love of our fellows will often check or turn aside our love\nof ourselves. Often when the desire for praise beckons us the dread of\nblame calls us back again. The love of praise may even lure us towards\nan act, and baulk us of its performance: as when a cricketer sacrifices\nthe applause of the crowd in order to win the praise of captain or\ncritics.\n\nSo will the lust of pleasure struggle against the lust of fame; the love\nof woman against the love of art; the passion for adventure against the\ndesire for wealth; and the victory will be to the stronger.\n\nLet us look into the human heart (the best way is to look into our own)\nand see how these inherited qualities work for and against each other.\n\nOne of the strongest checks is fear; another is what we call conscience.\n\nFear springs sometimes from \"love of approbation\"; we shrink from an act\nfrom fear of being found out, which would mean the loss of that esteem\nwe so prize. Or we shrink from fear of bodily pain: as those knew well\nwho invented the terrors of hell-fire.\n\nThere is a great deal of most respectable virtue that ought to be called\ncowardice. Deprive virtue of its \"dare nots,\" and how many \"would nots\"\nand \"should nots\" might survive? Good conduct may not mean the presence\nof virtue, but the lack of courage, or desire.\n\nBut, happily, men do right, also, for right's sake; and because it is\nright; or they refrain from doing wrong because it is wrong.\n\nThe bent towards right conduct arises from one of two sources:\n\n1. Education: we have been _taught_ that certain acts are wrong.\n\n2. Natural benevolence: a dislike to injure others.\n\nThe first of these--education--has to do with \"environment\"; the second\nis part of heredity. One we get from our fellow-men, the other from our\nancestors.\n\nHere let us pause to look into that much-preached-of \"mystery\" of the\n\"dual consciousness,\" or \"double-self.\"\n\nWe all know that men often do things which they know to be wrong. When\nwe halt between the desire to do a thing, and the feeling that we ought\nnot to do it, we seem to have two minds within us, and these two minds\ndispute about the decision.\n\nWhat is this \"mysterious\" double-self? It is nothing but the contest\nbetween heredity and environment; and is not mysterious at all.\n\nHeredity is very old. It reaches back, to the beasts. It passes on\nto us, generation after generation, for millions of years, certain\ninstincts, impulses, or desires of the beast.\n\nEnvironment is new. It begins at the cradle. It prints upon us certain\nlessons of right and wrong. It tells us that we ought not to do certain\nthings.\n\nBut the desire to do those things is part of our heredity. It is in our\nblood. It is persistent, turbulent, powerful. It rises up suddenly, with\na glare and a snarl, like a wild beast in its lair. And at the sound of\nits roar, and the flame of its lambent eyes, and the feel of its fiery\nbreath, memory lifts its voice and hand, and repeats the well-learned\nlesson with its \"shall-nots.\"\n\nWe are told that the animal impulses dwell in the \"hind brain,\" and that\nmorals and thought dwell in the \"fore brain.\" The \"dual personality,\"\nthen, the \"double-self,\" consists of the two halves of the brain; and\nthe dispute between passion and reason, or between desire and morality,\nis a conflict between the lower man and the higher; between the old Adam\nand the new.\n\nBut it is also, to a great extent, a conflict between the average man\nand the hero, or leader.\n\nWe inherit the roots of morality, that is ta say, the \"social\ninstincts,\" or impulses of unselfish thoughts for others, from the\nsociable animals. But what we call \"ethics,\" the rules or laws of moral\nconduct, have been slowly built up by human teachers. These teachers\nhave been men with a special genius for morals. They have made codes of\nmorals higher than the nature of the average man can reach.\n\nBut the average man has been taught these codes of morals in his\nchildhood, and has grown up in unquestioning respect for them.\n\nSo when his baser nature prompts him to an act, and his memory repeats\nthe moral lesson it has learnt, we have the nature of the average man\nconfronted by the teaching of the superior or more highly moral man.\n\nAnd there is naturally a conflict between the desire to do evil, and\nthe knowledge of what things are good. It is not easy for Wat Tyler,\nCorporal Trim, or Sir John Falstaff to follow the moral lines laid down\nby such men as Buddha, Seneca, or Socrates. Sir John knows the value of\ntemperance; but he has a potent love of sack. Wat knows that it is\ngood for a man to govern his temper; but he is a choleric subject,\nand \"hefty\" with a hammer. There was a lot of human nature in the\nshipwright, who being reminded that St. Paul said a man was better\nsingle, retorted that \"St. Paul wasn't a North Shields man.\"\n\n\nOUR POSSIBILITIES\n\nWe know very well that some qualities may make either for good or bad.\nStrength, ability, courage, emulation, may go to the making of a great\nhero, or a great criminal..\n\nIf a man's bent, or teaching, be good, he will do better, if it be\nevil he will do worse by reason of his talents, his daring, or his\nresolution.\n\nDirt has been defined as \"matter in the wrong place\": badness might\nbe often defined as goodness misapplied. Courage ill-directed is\nfoolhardiness; caution in excess is cowardice; firmness overstrained is\nobstinacy.\n\nMany of our inherited qualities are what we call \"potentialities\": they\nare \"possibilities,\" capabilities, strong, or potential for good or\nevil.\n\nLove of praise may drive a man to seek fame as a philanthropist, a\ntyrant, a discoverer, or a train-robber.\n\nLove of adventure and love of fame had as much to do with the exploits\nof Gaude Duval and Morgan, the buccaneer, as with those of Drake or\nClive.\n\nNelson was as keen for fame as Buonaparte: but the Englishman loved his\ncountry; the Corsican himself.\n\nDoubtless Torquemada had as much religious zeal as St. Francis; but the\none breathed curses, the other blessings.\n\nPugnacity is good when used against tyranny or wrong; it is bad when\nused against liberty or right.\n\nMen of brilliant parts have failed for lack of industry or judgment. Men\nof noble qualities have gone to ruin because of some inborn weakness,\nor bias towards vice. Our minds \"are of a mingled yarn, good and ill\ntogether.\" Many of life's most tragic human failures have been \"sweet\nbells jangled out of tune and harsh.\" Ophelia was not the first woman,\nnor the last by many millions, to perish through reaching for flowers\nthat grow aslant the brook. If virtue is often cowardice, frailty is\noften love; and the words of Laertes to the \"churlish priest\" might\nfrequently be spoken for some poor \"Bottom Dog\" in reproach of the\nunjust censure of a Pharisee: \"a ministering angel shall my sister be,\nwhen thou liest howling.\"\n\nWe must remember, then, that the happiness or unhappiness of our nature\ndepends not so much upon any special quality as upon the general balance\nof the whole.\n\nPoor Oscar Wilde had many fine qualities, but his egotism, his vicious\ntaint, and, perhaps, his unfortunate surroundings, drove him to\nshipwreck, with all his golden talents aboard. Every day noble ships\nrun upon the rocks; every day brave pennons go down in the press of the\nbattle, and are trampled in the blood and dust; every day lackeys ride\nin triumph, and princes slave on the galleys; every day the sweet buds\ngo to the swine-trough, and the gay and fair young children to shame or\nthe jail.\n\nSome fall through loving too much, others through loving not at all.\nSome are shattered by a single fault, like a ruby cup with one flaw in\nits radiant heart. Some are twisted out of all hope from birth, like one\nof Omar's pots, which the potter moulded awry. Some seeds of innocent\nlilies, or roses of loveliness, or passion flowers divine, are scattered\nupon the rocks, or blown by harsh winds out to sea.\n\nDo you know Thomas Carlyle's burning words concerning these tragic\nfates?\n\nCholera doctors, hired to dive into black dens of infection and despair,\nthey, rushing about all day, from lane to lane, with their life in their\nhand, are found to do their function; which is a much more rugged one\nthan Howard's. O, what say we, Cholera Doctors? Ragged losels, gathered\nby beat of drum from the over-crowded streets of cities, and drilled a\nlittle, and dressed in red, do not they stand fire in an uncensurable\nmanner; and handsomely give their life, if needful, at the rate of a\nshilling per day? Human virtue, if we went down to the roots of it, is\nnot so rare. The materials of human virtue are everywhere abundant as\nthe light of the sun: raw materials--O woe, and loss, and scandal thrice\nand three-fold, that they so seldom are elaborated, and built into a\nresult. That they lie yet unelaborated and stagnant in the souls of\nwidespread dreary millions, fermenting, festering; and issue at last as\nenergetic vice instead of strong practical virtue! A Mrs. Manning \"dying\ngame\"--alas, is not that the foiled potentiality of a kind of heroine\ntoo? Not a heroic Judith, not a mother of Gracchi now, but a hideous\nmurderess, fit to be mother of hyenas! To such extent can potentialities\nbe foiled.\n\nLet us bear in mind, then, that a man's powers, like the powers of a\nstate, will work for good or for evil, as they are ill or well governed.\n\nAnd the government of human powers and desires depends partly upon\nheredity, and largely upon environment, of which in its due place.\n\nHow Does Heredity Make Genius?\n\nI shall not weary the reader with proofs of heredity. It would be a\nwaste of words to quote pages of Darwin, Spencer, Weissmann, and Galton\nfor the sake of proving the obvious. Our own observation and common\nsense will convince us that our traits and qualities of body and mind\nare inherited.\n\nWe know that rabbits do not breed kittens, nor eagles geese, nor apples\noranges, nor negroes whites. We know that in all cases where the breed\nis pure the descent is pure; and we understand that where a black\nsheep is born into a white flock, or a fair child is born of dark\nfore-parents, the \"sport,\" as it is called, is due to atavism, or\nbreeding back. Somewhere, near or far, the breed has been \"crossed.\"\n\nBut there is one question that has caused a good deal of doubt and\nperplexity, and, as the answer to that question is not obvious, we will\nconsider it here.\n\nA \"sport\" is \"an individual departure from a type.\" A sport is a \"freak\nof nature.\" A genius is a \"sport\"; and the question we are to answer\nhere is:\n\nHow does heredity account for genius?\n\nTo make the matter quite clear, and to meet all doubts, we will split\nour question into two:\n\n1. How is it that genius does not always beget genius?\n\n2. How is it mediocrity does sometimes beget genius?\n\nTake the first question. How is it that genius does not always beget\ngenius? Mr. Galton has disposed of the objection that clever men do not\nhave clever sons by showing that clever men often do have clever sons.\n\nBut the fact remains that such men as Shakespeare, Plato, C\u00e6sar, and\nSocrates never have children as great as themselves.\n\nAnd it has been claimed that this fact belies heredity.\n\nBut to those who know even a very little about heredity it is quite\nobvious that we ought not to expect the son of a very great genius to be\nequal to his father.\n\nSuch a recurrence is rendered almost impossible by the law of variation.\n\nA great man is a lucky product of heredity and environment. He is a\nfortunate, and accidental, blending of several qualities which make\ngreatness possible.\n\nBut the great man's son is not born of the same parents as his father.\nHis blood is only half of it drawn from the families which produced his\nfather's greatness; the other half is from another family, which may\ncontain no elements of greatness.\n\nThus so far from its being strange that genius does not beget genius, we\nsee that it would be strange if genius did beget genius.\n\nThe children of Shakespeare would not be Shakespeareans: they would be\nhalf Shakespeare and half Hathaway; and it is quite possible that their\nintellectual qualities might come chiefly from the mother's side.\n\nNow, if Ann Hathaway's family were not intellectually equal to\nShakespeare's family, how could we expect the children of those two to\nbe equal to the child of the superior breed?\n\nWe should not expect a mixture of wine and water to be all wine; nor the\nfoal of a blood horse and a half-bred mare to be a thoroughbred horse.\nSo much for the first question. Those who ask such a question have lost\nsight of the law of variation.\n\nNow for the second question. How is it that mediocrity breeds genius?\nThe answer to that is that mediocrity does _not_ breed genius.\n\nLet us take a case that is often cited: the case of the great musician,\nHandel.\n\nGeorge Frederick Handel was a musical genius; and we are told that\nheredity does not account for his genius, as no other member of his\nfamily had ever displayed any special musical talent. Whence, then, did\nHandel get his musical genius? What are the qualities that go to the\nmaking of a great composer?\n\nFirst, an exquisite ear; that implies great gifts of time and tune.\nSecond, a great imagination. Third, an \"infinite capacity for taking\npains.\" Fourth, a quick and sensitive nervous system.\n\nNow, a man might possess great industry, or ambition, and sensitive\nnerves, and not be an artist of any kind.\n\nHe might have a great imagination, and lack the industry or the ambition\nto use it effectively.\n\nHe might have industry, ambition, sensitive nerves, and great\nimagination, and yet without the musical ear he would never be a\nmusician.\n\nAnd the same may be said of any one or more of his ancestors.\n\nTherefore, there may have been amongst Handel's foreparents all the\nqualities needed for the making of a great musician without those\nqualities ever happening to be united in one person.\n\nLet us suppose a case. A man of energy and ambition, but with average\nimagination, and an average ear, marries a woman of ordinary mind. Their\nson marries a woman of strong imagination. The child of this second,\nunion marries a woman of refined nature and considerable imagination.\nThe son of this union may be ambitious, imaginative, and energetic, for\nhe may inherit all those qualities from his foreparents.\n\nThen the only trait left to be accounted for is the fine musical ear.\n\nNow that gift for music may have come down to him from some distant\nforeparent, living in an age when such a quality had no outlet. Or it\nmay have come down to him from some foreparent who lacked ambition or\nenergy to use it in a striking way.\n\nIt happens very often that a son inherits his finest intellectual and\nemotional qualities from his mother.\n\nAnd we know that a talent of any kind is more likely to lie dormant in a\nwoman than in a man. For the woman may spend all her time and attention\nupon her home, her husband, her children.\n\nI knew a case in which two sisters possessed considerable artistic\ntalent Yet, so far as anyone knew, none of their foreparents had shown\nartistic ability. But one of the sisters told me that her mother had a\nremarkable gift for drawing, which she had never used, \"except to amuse\nher children.\"\n\nNow, when we come to look into the case of Handel, we find that his\nfather's family never gave any sign of musical talent But of\nhis mother's family, and of the families of his grandmother and\ngreat-grandmother we know little.\n\nBut Handel's father was ambitious and energetic, and his mother is\ndescribed as follows:\n\nThe mother was thirty-three years old, and, we are told, was\n\"clear-minded, of strong piety, with a great knowledge of the Bible... a\ncapable manager, earnest, and of pleasant manners.\"\n\nIs there any proof that Handel's mother had not a good musical ear?\nNone. Is there any proof that she had not, lying dormant, some special\ngift for music, inherited from some ancestor? None.\n\nIn that day, and in that part of Germany, music was set little store by,\nand musicians were regarded much as actors were in England. Therefore\nany great musical gift which happened to be inherited by a woman would\nhave small chance of being developed or used. And it is quite possible\nthat Handel may have inherited his ear from his mother's family.\n\nAgain, the musical talent may have been a quality that had been\nimproving by marriage for several generations. Or it may have been an\naccident, due to some physical process about which we cannot possibly\nhave any direct knowledge.\n\nFor instance, just as some special excellence of some special organ\nmay be handed down, so may some special defect A child may inherit the\ndefect, or the excellence. Or he may inherit a talent from both parents,\nand so may excel them both.\n\nA man may inherit his genius piecemeal from a hundred ancestors, some\nof them dead for centuries, or he may owe his special brilliance to some\nexcitement, or even to some derangement of the nervous system. In fact,\nto what Lombroso calls \"degeneracy.\" He may be like a river, fed by\nseveral ancestral streams. He may be the descendant of some \"mute\ninglorious Milton.\" But one thing he is not--he is not a \"mystery.\"\nThere is nothing in his greatness more mysterious than the accumulation\nof money in a bank, or the agrandisement of a river by its tributary\nstreams, or the sudden appearance of a pattern of unusual beauty in a\nkaleidoscope.\n\nThere is nothing in genius to belie heredity. There is nothing in genius\nthat cannot be accounted for by heredity--if we remember the laws of\nvariation, and of atavism, or breeding back.\n\n\n\"THE BORN CRIMINAL\"\n\nSpeaking strictly, there are no \"born criminals\"; but there are some\nunfortunate creatures born with a nature prone to crime, just as there\nare others born with a nature prone to disease.\n\nThese \"born criminals,\" regarded by their better-endowed or luckier\nbrothers and sisters as \"wicked,\" are the victims of \"atavism\" or of\n\"degeneracy.\"\n\nThey are as much to be pitied, and as little to be blamed, as those born\nwith a liability to insanity or consumption.\n\nAtavism, as we have seen, is a reversion to an older and a lower type, a\n\"breeding back,\" in some points, to the savage or the brute.\n\n\"Degeneracy\" is the inherited result of vice, insanity, or disease in\nthe parent Lombroso describes degeneracy as \"the action of heredity\nin the children of the inebriate, the syphilitic, the insane, the\nconsumptive, etc.; or of accidental causes, such as lesions of the\nhead, or the action of mercury, which profoundly change the tissues,\nperpetuates neuroses or other diseases in the patient, and, which is\nworse, aggravates them in his descendants.\"\n\nThe atavist is a man born with the nature, or some of the traits of\nbestial or savage ancestors. He is bred back to the type that was before\nmorals. He is born with strong animal traits, with few social qualities;\nwith little or no moral brain. He is a modern child, born with the\npassions, or the appetites, or the intelligence, of an ape, or a\ncave-man. To expect him to rise to the moral standard of to-day, and to\nblame him if he fail, is as unreasonable as it would be to expect the\nsame conduct from a gorilla, or a panther.\n\nIf the atavist is \"wicked,\" the shark, and the wolf, and the adder are\n\"wicked.\"\n\nTo say that the atavistic man has \"reason\" is no answer; he has _not_\nthe kind of reason that makes for peace and order. His misfortune just\nlies in the fact that he is \"bred back\" to the kind of reason which,\namongst the cave-men, perhaps, made a man a leader, or a hero, but\namongst civilised Western people makes him a \"born criminal.\"\n\nI said before, that to blame a Spaniard for being proud is to blame him\nfor being born of Spanish parents. It is just as true to say that to\nblame a man for being a \"born criminal\" is to blame him because some\nof his baser ancestors have accidentally passed on to him the traits of\ntheir lower natures.\n\nIndeed, it is plainly absurd to blame a man for being \"born\" anything,\nsince he had no hand nor part in his birth.\n\nAll we can do with regard to the \"born criminal\" is to pity him for his\nunhappy inheritance, and try to make the best of him. So far we have\nnever tried to make the best of him; but have usually made almost the\nworst of him, by meeting his hate with our hate, his ignorance with our\nignorance, his ferocity with our ferocity. Nature, or God, having cursed\nthe poor wretch with a heritage of shame, we have come forward, in the\nname of humanity and justice, to punish and execrate him for his fatal\nmischoice of ancestors. It is as though we should flog a gorilla or a\nhy\u00e6na for having wickedly refused to be born a Canon of St. Paul's, or a\nPrimitive Methodist Sunday school teacher.\n\nBut some will suppose that the \"born criminal\" might be a sober,\nlaw-abiding, and God-fearing man, \"if he would try\"; and they do not\nunderstand that the man with the atavistic brain _cannot_ try.\n\nHe has not got the kind of brain that can try to be what we think he\nought to be. We do not expect the bear to \"try\" to be polite, nor the\nhog to \"try\" to be cleanly. We know they cannot try to be either of\nthose things. Neither can the atavistic man _try_ to be something for\nwhich his nature was not made.\n\nWhat is sauce for the atavist is sauce for the degenerate. He also is\nthe victim of cruel fate. He also inherits misfortune, or shame, or\ndisaster from his fathers. His nature is not a casting back to an\nancient type: it is a nature poisoned, maimed, perverted, or spoiled\nthrough the vices or the diseases of those who brought him into the\nworld.\n\nThe degenerate may inherit from a diseased or drunken parent an\nimperfect mind or an imperfect body. He may be born with a weak moral\nsense, or with weak lungs, or with an ill-balanced brain.\n\nProneness to crime or proneness to disease may be born in him through\nno fault of his own. The cause is the same in both cases: the vice or\ndisease of a parent.\n\nNow it is certain that we do not blame, but pity, and that we do not\npunish but help the victim whose degeneracy takes the form of disease.\nBut we do blame and we do punish the victim whose degeneracy takes the\nform of immorality or crime.\n\nIn neither case is the degeneracy the fault of the degenerate: in both\ncases it is handed down to him by his parent or parents. Yet in the one\ncase he gets our sympathy, and in the other case our censure.\n\nThere is neither justice nor reason in such treatment of those who have\nthe misfortune to be born--in the true sense of the words--of \"unsound\nmind.\"\n\nThose who have made a scientific study of crime tell us that \"psychic\natavism is the dominant characteristic of the born criminal.\"\n\nWhat is \"psychic atavism\"? It is a breeding back, or \"casting back\" to\na lower type of mind. This atavistic mind is inherited by the \"born\ncriminal\" just as certain \"muscles common to apes\" are inherited by some\nother men.\n\nAnd we are told that this inherited atavistic mind is \"the dominant\ncharacteristic of the criminal born.\" In other words, those men whom\nwe have always blamed and punished as exceptionally \"wicked,\" have\ninherited an atavistic, or criminal, mind from ancestors who died\nmillions of years ago. The most noticeable and striking fact about the\nborn criminal is his unfortunate inheritance of that atavistic mind.\n\nAnd in the plenitude of our wisdom and the glow of our righteous wrath,\nwe hang a man, or flog him, or brand him, or loathe him, because a cruel\nfate has visited upon him an affliction more pitiable than blindness, or\nlameness, or paralysis, or consumption.\n\nIn cases of psychic atavism the actual form of the brain, or the skull,\nis more or less like that of the older and lower type to which the\nluckless atavist has been cast back. The skull of the \"born criminal\" is\nthe skull of the ape-man, or the cave-man. It has a low and retreating\nforehead, a heavy and square jaw, and is large behind, where the baser\nanimal parts of the brain are placed.\n\nNow, to expect the same morals and the same intelligence from a man\ncursed with the skull of a gorilla, or the brain of a wild hog, as from\nthe man blest with the skull and brain of a Socrates or a Shakespeare,\nis like expecting figs to grow upon thistles, or fish to breathe without\ngills.\n\nAnd to blame a man for the shape of his skull, or the balance of his\nbrain, is as foolish as to blame him because he has no eye for colour\nor no ear for music, or because his \"having in beard is as a younger\nbrother's revenue.\"\n\nSpeaking on this subject in his excellent book, \"The Diseases of\nSociety,\" Dr. Lydston, Professor of Criminal Anthropology, who is a\nwell-known authority in America, says:\n\nAtavism, or reversion of type, is a most important phase of the relation\nof evolutionary law to criminal and vice tendencies.... Reversion of\ntype may be psychic (mental) or physical or both.\n\nWhether associated with obvious physical reversions or not, psychic\natavism is the dominant characteristic of the criminal. It is certainly\nthe principal phenomenon involved in the study of the crime question,\nbecause it constitutes the dynamics of crime. The outcropping of\nancestral types of mentality is observed to underlie many of the\nmanifestations of vice and crime. These ancestral types or traits may\nrevert farther back even than the savage progenitors of civilised man,\nand approximate those of the lower animals who, in turn, stand behind\nthe savage in the line of descent....\n\nLombroso assigns to atavism a position of pre-eminence in the etiology\nof crime. In effect he thinks that crime is a return to primitive and\nbarbarous ancestral conditions, the criminal being practically a savage,\nborn later than his day. Obviously this view fits very accurately\nthe so-called born criminal, comprising about one-tenth of the entire\ncriminal population.\n\nBut what of the other victims of heredity: the criminal, or immoral\n\"degenerate\"? Let us take a few facts, and see what they will teach us.\n\nDr. Lydston testifies as follows:\n\nRev. O. McCulloch has traced the life histories of seventeen hundred and\nfifty degenerate criminal and pauper descendants of one \"Ben Ishmael,\"\nwho lived in Kentucky in 1790.\n\nThe Rev. Dr. Stocker, of Berlin, traced eight hundred and thirty-four\ndescendants of two sisters, who lived in 1825. Among them were\nseventy-six who had served one hundred and sixteen years in prison, one\nhundred and sixty-four prostitutes, one hundred and six illegitimate\nchildren, seventeen pimps, one hundred and forty-two beggars, and\nsixty-four paupers.\n\nIt has been estimated by Sichart, Director of Prisons in Wurtemburg,\nthat over twenty-five per cent, of the German prison population comes\nfrom a degenerate ancestry. Vergilis claims thirty-two per cent, for\nItalian criminals.\n\nNow, bearing in mind that the unfortunate children of drunken, diseased,\ncriminal, vicious, and insane parents may, and in very many cases will,\neither become criminal or immoral, or, becoming imbecile or diseased,\nwill breed other degenerate children who will become criminal or\nimmoral, let us consider the following plain facts taken from a London\ndaily paper of the present year (1905).\n\nIt is estimated that there are 50,000 epileptic children in the\nUnited Kingdom, and that one child in every 100 of the population is\nfeeble-minded.\n\nIn the last few years special schools have been opened for these\nchildren, and they are trained until they are sixteen years of age.\nAt that age they are turned out into the world. A few are able to look\nafter themselves. The majority drift into imbecility and vice, and flood\nthe workhouses and prisons.\n\nAt a meeting in the Guildhall, London, called to discuss the means of\ndealing with imbeciles and epileptics, a speech was made by Dr. Potts,\nof Birmingham, of which the following is a condensed report, cut by me\nfrom the _Daily Express_:\n\nTerrible facts with regard to feeble-minded and defective women were\ngiven by Dr. Potts. He paid a visit to a girls' night shelter, and\ninvestigated the first twelve cases he found there. Here is their\nrecord:\n\n1. Consumptive, both parents died of the disease.\n\n2. Neurotic drunkard, with a family who had suffered from St. Vitus'\ndance.\n\n3. Normal.\n\n4. Deaf and mentally defective.\n\n5. Neurotic and mentally defective.\n\n6. No congenital defect, but health ruined by drink.\n\n7 and 8. Feeble character.\n\n9. Suffering from persistent bad memory.\n\n10. Twice imprisoned for theft; daughter of drunken loafer.\n\n11. Normal.\n\n12. Mentally defective and suffering from heart disease. Thus, out of\ntwelve only two were normal individuals. Yet the ten were free to go as\nthey liked, and to bring up defective children.\n\n\"It is well known,\" said Dr. Potts, \"that a large number of the inmates\nof penitentiaries are feeble-minded women.\"\n\nWe see, then, that a great many poor imbeciles are regularly sent to\nprison as criminals. On that point allow me to put in the evidence\nof Sir Robert Anderson, late of Scotland Yard. Speaking of the\nfeeble-minded, Sir Robert said (I quote again from the London Press):\n\nMy deliberate, conviction is that our present prison methods and prison\ndiscipline are absolutely brutal to these poor persons. People say the\nlaw of Moses is brutal, but it is not so brutal as the present criminal\nsystem of England.\n\nNo one who has not been behind the scenes can understand in any measure\nthe misery and cruelty of it. It is \"seven days' hard labour,\" \"a\nmonth's hard labour,\" time after time for these poor creatures, who\nought to be dealt with like children. In prison they spend their\nmiserable lives. Out of gaol they add to the number of their own\nspecies, and commit offences which send them back once more.\n\nOur magistrates simply send them for another month or six months. But it\nis not the magistrates' fault. It is the fault of the law. And this goes\non in what promises to be the most intellectually conceited age since\nGod made man upon earth. Surely we might have some pity for these poor\ncreatures! If we have no pity for them we should have regard for the\npublic.\n\nThat is the testimony of the late head of the Criminal Investigation\nDepartment: an Assistant Commissioner of Police, and Barrister at Law.\n\nLet us now return to Dr. Potts, of Birmingham, for a moment. In the\nspeech above quoted Dr. Potts gave the causes of mental defects--which\nare the causes that lead these poor creatures to immorality and to\ncrime, as follows:\n\n1. Defective nutrition in early years of life.\n\n2. Hereditary tendency to consumption.\n\n3. Descent from insane or criminal stock.\n\n4. Chronic alcoholism of one or both parents.\n\nWe have here, added by Dr. Potts, another cause of degeneracy: that is,\ndefective nutrition in early life. In plain words, improper feeding, or\nsemi-starvation.\n\nLater, when we come to deal with environment, I shall show that there\nare many other causes of degeneration and of crime. But here I only\npoint out that atavism and degeneration account for from thirty to\nforty per cent, of the criminals of the present day. That atavism\nand degeneration are forced upon the unborn child by heredity; that\ntherefore these forty per cent, of our criminals are unfortunate victims\nof fate, and are no more blameworthy nor wicked than the victims of\na railway accident, or an earthquake, or an epidemic of cholera or\nsmallpox.\n\nThey should, as I claimed before, be pitied, and not blamed; they should\nbe helped, not punished.\n\nUnhappy, unblest atavistic man, that in lieu of love has only lust, in\nlieu of wisdom only cunning, in lieu of power violence; and with a whole\nworld to walk in, as in a garden fair, lies wallowing hideously in the\nfoul dungeon of his own unlightened soul.\n\nUnhappy criminal born, most pitiful dreadful of developed creatures;\nlonelier and more accursed than banded wolf or solitary tiger: a waif, a\nspoil, a pariah \"born out of his due time\":\n\nA scribe's work writ awry and blurred,\n\nSpoiled music, with no perfect word, a wretched, horrible Ishmael with\nhis hand against the hand of every man, and every man's hand implacably\nagainst his.\n\nOn him, it would appear, has fallen the doom of the prophet, and\ninstead of sweet spices there is rottenness, instead of a girdle a rope:\nbranding instead of beauty.\n\nIn the barren garden of his mind no flowers will blow, his trees will\nbear no fruit All human pleasure is to him a Circe cup; he finds no\npathos in the children's laughter, no beauty in the dawn-shine; no glory\nin the constellations.\n\nWhat are we to do for this wretched desperate brother who will not love\nus though we whip him with whips of wire, who will not make friends\nof us though we spurn and spit upon him; who, though we preach to him,\ncannot understand; who, though we teach him, cannot learn; who, though\nwe hang him high as, Haman, will \"die game,\" cursing us with his\nstrangled breath, mocking us with his blinded eyes; and in spite of\nall our intellect and righteousness going back from us unbettered and\nuntamed into the abyss of eternity and the laboratory of evolution,\nwhence he and we were drawn: going back from us a savage still, and in\nhis angry heart and baffled mind holding our half-fledged knowledge and\ngreen morality in derision.\n\nWell, he is dead; his stiff neck broken, and his body wrapped in a\nwinding sheet of lime.\n\nAnd we? We remain the superior persons we are. We are civilised, and\nholy. We punish weakness with blows, and misfortune with chains. We\nteach sweet reasonableness with the cat-o'-nine-tails--steeped in brine.\nWe exemplify gentleness and mercy with the gibbet and the axe. We brand\nthe blind, and torture the imbecile, and execrate the miserable, and\ndamn the diseased, and revile the fallen; we set our righteous heel upon\nthe creeping thing, and thank our anomalous and hypothetical God of Love\nand Justice that we are not as those others--our atavistic brother and\nhis degenerate children.\n\nAnd our atavistic brother, the criminal born! He does not understand us,\nhe does not admire us, he cannot love us. We fail, in some inexplicable\nway, to charm the deaf adder, charm we never so wisely.\n\nBut some day, perhaps, when the superior person has achieved humility,\neven the outlawed Bottom Dog may come by some crumbs of sympathy, some\ndrops of the milk of human kindness, and--then?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER SIX--ENVIRONMENT\n\nWHAT is environment?\n\nWhen we speak of a man's environment we mean his surroundings, his\nexperiences; all that he sees, hears, feels, and learns from the instant\nthat the lamp of life is kindled to the instant when the light goes out.\n\nBy environment we mean everything that develops or modifies the child or\nthe man for good or for ill.\n\nWe mean his mother's milk; the home, and the state of life into which he\nwas born. We mean the nurse who suckles him, the children he plays with,\nthe school he learns in, the air he breathes, the water he drinks, the\nfood he eats. We mean the games he plays, the work he does, the sights\nhe sees, the sounds he hears. We mean the girls he loves, the woman he\nmarries, the children he rears, the wages he earns. We mean the sickness\nthat tries him, the griefs that sear him, the friends who aid and the\nenemies who wound him. We mean all his hopes and fears, his victories\nand defeats; his faiths and his disillusionments. We mean all the harm\nhe does, and all the help he gives; all the ideals that beckon him,\nall the temptations that lure him; all his weepings and laughter, his\nkissings and cursings, his lucky hits and unlucky blunders: everything\nhe does and suffers under the sun.\n\nI go into all this detail because we must remember that everything\nthat happens to a man, everything that influences him, is a part of his\nenvironment.\n\nIt is a common mistake to think of environment in a narrow sense, as\nthough environment implied no more than poverty or riches. Everything\noutside our skin belongs to our environment.\n\nLet us think of it again. Education is environment; religion is\nenvironment; business and politics are environment; all the ideals,\nconventions, and prejudices of race and class are environment;\nliterature, science, and the Press are environment; music, history, and\nsport are environment; beauty and ugliness are environment; example and\nprecept are environment; war and travel and commerce are environment;\nsunshine and ozone, honour and dishonour, failure and success, are\nenvironment; love is environment.\n\nI stress and multiply examples because the power of environment is so\ntremendous that we can hardly over-rate its importance.\n\nA child is not born with a conscience; but with the rudiments of a\nconscience: the materials from which a conscience may or may not be\ndeveloped--by environment.\n\nA child is not born with capacities, but only with potentialities, or\npossibilities, for good or evil, which may or may not be developed--by\nenvironment.\n\nA child is born absolutely without knowledge. Every atom of knowledge he\ngets must be got from his environment.\n\nEvery faculty of body or of mind grows stronger with use and weaker with\ndisuse. This is as true of the reason and the will as of the muscles.\n\nThe sailor has better sight than the townsman, because his eyes get\nbetter exercise. The blind have sharper ears than ours, because they\ndepend more on their hearing.\n\nExercise of the mind \"alters the arrangement of the grey matter of the\nbrain,\" and so alters the morals, the memory, and the reasoning powers.\n\nJust as dumb-bells, rowing, or delving develop the muscles, thought,\nstudy, and conversation develop the brain.\n\nAnd everything that changes, or develops, muscle or brain is a part of\nour environment.\n\nThere must be bounds to the powers of environment, but no man has yet\ndiscovered the limits, and few have dared to place them wide enough.\n\nBut the scope of environment is undoubtedly so great, as I shall try to\nprove, that, be the heredity what it may, environment has power to save\nor damn.\n\nLet us think what it means to be born quite without knowledge. Let us\nthink what it means to owe all that we learn to environment.\n\nSo it is. Were it not for the action of environment, for the help\nof other men and women, we should live and die as animals; without\nmorality, without decency, without the use of tools, or arms, or arts,\nor letters. We should be savages, or superior kinds of apes. That we are\ncivilised and cultured men and women we owe to the fellow-creatures\nwho gave into our infant hands the key to the stored-up knowledge and\nexperience of the race.\n\nThe main difference between the Europe of to-day and the Europe of the\nold Stone Age is one of knowledge: that is, of environment\n\nSuppose that a child of Twentieth-Century parents could be born into the\nenvironment of an earlier century. Would he grow up with the ideas of\nto-day, or with the ideas of those who taught and trained him? Most\ncertainly he would fall into step with his environment: he would think\nwith those with whom he lived, and from whom he learnt.\n\nBorn into ancient Athens, he would look upon slavery as a quite natural\nand proper thing born into ancient Scandinavia, he would grow up a\nViking, would worship Thor and Odin, and would adopt piracy as the only\nprofession for a man of honour born into the environment of the Spanish\nprime, he would think it a righteous act to roast heretics or to\nbreak Lutherans on the wheel. Born into the fanatical environment of\nSixteenth-Century France, he would have no scruples against assisting in\nthe holy massacre of St. Bartholomew's.\n\nBorn a Turk, he would believe the Koran, and accept polygamy and\nslavery. Born a Red Indian, he would scalp his slain or wounded enemies,\nand torture his prisoners. Born amongst cannibals, he would devour his\naged relatives, and his faded wives, and most of the foes made captive\nto his bow and spear.\n\nSuppose a child of modern English family could be born into the\nenvironment of Fourteenth-Century England!\n\nHe would surely believe in the Roman Catholic religion, in a personal\ndevil, and in a hell of everlasting fire.\n\nHe would believe that the sun goes round the world, and that any person\nwho thought otherwise was a child of the devil, and ought to be broiled\npiously and slowly at a fire of green faggots.\n\nHe would accept slave-dealing, witch-burning, the Star Chamber, the\nwhipping-post, the pillory, and the forcing of evidence by torture, as\ncomfortably as we now accept the cat-o'-nine-tails, the silent system,\nand the gallows.\n\nHe would look upon education, sanitation, and science as black magic and\ndefiance of God.\n\nHe would never have learnt from Copernicus, Newton, Harvey, Bacon,\nSpencer, Darwin, Edison, or Pasteur.\n\nHe would be ignorant of Shakespeare, Cromwell, the French Revolution,\nthe Emancipation of Slaves, the Factory Acts, and the Household\nFranchise.\n\nHe would never have heard of electricity, steam, cheap books, the free\nPress, the School Board, the Fabian Society.\n\nHe would never have heard of the Australian Colonies, of the Indian\nEmpire, of the United States of America, nor of Buonaparte, George\nWashington, Nelson, Queen Elizabeth, Abraham Lincoln, nor Florence\nNightingale.\n\nNot one of these great men, not one of these great things would form a\npart of his environment.\n\nNor may we lightly claim that he, himself, would be of a more highly\ndeveloped type, that his propensities would be more humane, his nature\nmore refined.\n\nFor we must not overlook such examples as Alfred the Great, Joan of Arc,\nChaucer, Mallory, and Sir Thomas More.\n\nWe must not forget that the refined John Wesley believed in\nwitch-burning, that the refined Jeremy Taylor thought all the millions\nborn in heathen darkness would be doomed to eternal torment.\n\nNor must we forget that many educated, cultured, and well-meaning\nEuropeans and Americans to-day believe that unbaptised babies, and\nfree-thinkers, and unrepentant Christians will lie shrieking forever in\na lake of fire and brimstone.\n\nWe must not forget that it is now, in the Twentieth Century, that I,\nan Englishman, am writing this book to plead that men and women,\nour brothers and sisters, should not be hated, degraded, whipped,\nimprisoned, hanged, and everlastingly damned for being more ignorant and\nless fortunate than others, their fellows.\n\nTaken straight from the cradle and brought up by brutes, a child would\nbe scarcely human. Taken straight from the cradle and brought up amongst\nsavages, the child must be a savage.\n\nTaken straight from the cradle and brought up amongst thieves, the child\nmust be a thief.\n\nEvery child is born destitute of knowledge, and every child is born with\npropensities that may make for evil or for good.\n\nAnd the men and women amongst whom the child is born and reared are the\nsole source from which he can get knowledge.\n\nAnd the men and women amongst whom the child is born and reared are the\nsole means by which his propensities may be restrained from evil and\ndeveloped for good.\n\nThe child's character, then, his development for good or evil, depends\nupon his treatment by his fellow-creatures.\n\nHis propensities depend upon his ancestors.\n\nThat is to say, a child must inevitably grow up and become that which\nhis ancestors and his fellow-creatures make him.\n\nThat is to say, that a man \"is a creature of heredity and environment.\"\nHe is what he is made by a certain kind of environment acting upon a\ncertain kind of heredity.\n\nHe does not choose his ancestors: he does not choose his environment.\nHow, then, can he be blamed if his ancestors give to him a bad heredity,\nor if his fellow-creatures give to him a bad environment?\n\nShould we blame a bramble for yielding no strawberries, or a privet bush\nfor bearing no chrysanthemums?\n\nShould we blame a rose tree for running wild in a jungle, or for\nlanguishing in the shadow of great elms?\n\nThere are no figs on thistles, because the heredity of the thistle does\nnot breed figs.\n\nAnd the lily pines, and bears leaves only, in darkness and a hostile\nsoil, because the conditions are against it.\n\nThe breed of the rose or the fig is its heredity: the soil and the\nsunshine, or the darkness and the cold, and the gardener's care or\nneglect, are its environment.\n\nLet any one who under-rates the power of environment exercise his\nimagination for a minute.\n\nSuppose he had never learnt to read! Suppose he had never learnt to\ntalk! Suppose he had never learnt to speak the truth, to control his\ntemper, to keep his word, to be courteous to women, to value life!\n\nNow, he had nothing of this when he was born. He brought no knowledge\nof any kind into the world with him. He had to be _taught_ to read, to\nspeak, to be honest, to be courteous; and the teaching was part of his\nenvironment.\n\nAnd suppose none had cared to teach him good. Suppose, instead, he had\nbeen taught to lie and to steal, to hate and to fight, to gamble and to\nswear! What manner of man would he have been?\n\nHe would have been that which his environment had made him.\n\nAnd would he have been to blame? Would it have been his fault that he\nwas born amongst thieves? Would it have been his fault that he had never\nheard good counsel, but had been drilled and trained to evil?\n\nBut the objector may say that as he got older and knew better he could\nmend his ways.\n\nAnd it is really necessary, strange as it may seem, to point out that he\nnever _could_ \"know better,\" unless some person _taught_ him better. And\nthe teaching him to \"know better\" would be a change in his environment:\nit would be a part of his environment, for which he himself would\ndeserve no credit.\n\nThe point is that, since he is born destitute of knowledge, he never\ncould know good unless _taught_ good by some other person. And that this\nother person would be outside himself, and part of his environment.\n\nNow, how could the ignorant child be blamed if some power outside\nhimself teaches him evil, or how can he be praised if some power outside\nhimself teaches him good?\n\nBut he would have a conscience? He would be born with the rudiments of a\nconscience. But what his conscience should become, what things it would\nhold as wrong, would depend wholly upon the teaching he got from those\nwho formed part of his environment.\n\nIn a cannibal environment he would have a cannibal conscience; in a\nCatholic environment a Catholic conscience; in a piratical environment\na pirate's conscience. But of that more in its due place. Let us now\nexamine some of the effects of environment.\n\n\nMORALS AND DISEASE\n\nThe brain is the mind. When the brain is diseased the mind is diseased.\nWhen the brain is sick the mind is sick.\n\nBut the brain is part of the body. We see, hear, smell, feel, and taste\nwith the brain. The nerves of the toes and fingers are connected with\nthe brain; they are like twigs on a tree, of which the brain is the\nroot. The same blood which circulates through the heart and limbs\ncirculates through the brain.\n\nIt is only a figure of speech to speak of the mind and the body as\ndistinct from each other. The mind and the body are one.\n\nA wound in any part of the body--a burn, a stab, a lash--is felt in the\nbrain. When the body suffers from illness or fatigue, the brain suffers\nalso. When a limb is paralysed, the real paralysis is in a part of the\nbrain. When the brain is paralysed the man can neither move nor speak,\nnor think nor feel. When the heart is weak the brain does not get enough\nblood, and the mind is languid, or syncope sets in ana the man dies.\n\nWe do not need a prophet nor a doctor to tell us that sickness affects\nthe mind. We know that dyspepsia, gout, or sluggish liver makes us\npeevish, stupid, jealous, suspicious, and despondent.\n\nWe know that illness or weariness turns a sweet temper sour, makes a\npatient man impatient, a grateful man ungrateful. We know how trying are\nthe caprices and whims of an invalid, and we commonly say of such, \"he\ncannot help it: he is not himself to-day.\"\n\nBut we do not know, as doctors know, how searching and how terrible are\nthe effects of some diseases on the brain. Dr. Lydston, in _The Diseases\nof Society_, says:\n\nThe old adage, _mens sana in corpore sano_, is too often forgotten.\nEspecially is it ignored by the legislator and penologist. A normal\npsychic balance and a brain fed with blood that is insufficient in\nquantity or vicious in quality are physiologic incompatibles. The nearer\nwe get to the marrow of criminality, the more closely it approximates\npathology.\n\nThat is to say that the sound mind depends largely on the sound body;\nthat a brain fed with diseased blood, or with too little blood, cannot\nwork healthily and well; and that the more we know of crime the closer\ndo we find its relation to disease.\n\nI quote again from Dr. Lydston:\n\nDespite the scant and conflicting testimony of cerebrologists with\nreference to the brain defects of criminals, there is so much clinical\nevidence of the aberration of morals and conduct from brain disease or\ninjury that we are justified in believing that brain defects of some\nkind affecting the mental and moral faculties is the _fons origo_\nof criminality. This defect, as already seen, may be congenital or\nacquired, and may consist of a lack of development due to vicious\nenvironment and faulty education, mental and physical.\n\nThe fountain from which crime arises, says this authority, is some form\nof disease, or defect of the brain. And such disease or defect may be\ninherited, or may be caused by bad environment: by improper teaching,\nfood, and exercise. To feel the full force of this statement we must\nbear in mind that \"children are not born with intellect and conscience,\nbut only with capacities for their development.\"\n\nTherefore, if the capacities for intellect and morals are _not_\ndeveloped, we cannot expect to find the intellect and morals.\n\nIn other words, we have no right to hope nor to expect that the\nneglected child will grow up into the good and clever man.\n\nNeither is it reasonable to hope for a cure by pumping moral lessons\ninto a brain in which no moral sense has been developed.\n\nThat epilepsy has a bad effect on morals, and that epileptics are often\nuntruthful, treacherous, and dangerous is as well known as that epilepsy\nis a form of degeneracy, and is often caused by improper feeding and\nneglect in childhood.\n\nHysteria also affects the moral nerves of the brain. Dr. Lydston says:\n\nHysterical women often bring accusations of crime against others. The\nvictim is generally a man, and the alleged crime, assault. Physicians\nrecognise this as one of the dangers to be guarded against in their\nwork. Hysterical women in the primary stage of anaesthesia, sometimes\nimagine themselves the victims of assault. In one well-known case the\nwoman accused a dentist of assault while he was administering nitrous\noxide to her. Her husband was in the room during the imaginary assault.\n\nDr. Lydston tells us that Flesch examined the brains of fifty criminals,\nand found imperfections in all.\n\nIn twenty-eight he found, in different cases, meningeal disease, such\nas adhesions, pachy-meningitis, interna h\u00e6morrhagica, tubercular\nmeningitis, leptomeningitis, edema of the pia mater, and h\u00e6morrhagic\nspinal meningitis; also atheroma of the bisillary arteries, cortical\natrophy, and cerebral haemorrhage. In most cases the pathologic\nconditions were not associated with the psychoses that are usually found\nunder such circumstances.\n\nHow many men have been hanged or sent to prison who ought to have been\nsent to lunatic asylums? According to Dr. Lydston, very many. As bearing\nupon that point I quote two passages from _The Diseases of Society_,\nwhich \"give one furiously to think.\" The first is from page 172:\n\nCases of moral turpitude, _mania furiosa_, and other mental disturbances\nare met with in which the patient is harshly treated, because of\nsupposed moral perverseness, and only the autopsy has shown how\nundeservedly the patient has been condemned. When a tumour or other\ndisease of the brain is found in a punished criminal, the case is most\npathetic.\n\nThe other passage is from page 221, and is as follows:\n\nIf the foregoing premises be correct, vice and crime will be one day\nshown more definitely than ever to be a matter to be dealt with by\nmedical science rather than by law.\n\nThe \"foregoing premises\" here alluded to concern the increase in vice\nand crime through autotoxemia, or unconscious self-poisoning, due to\nover-strain and other evil conditions of life.\n\nAs to this self-poisoning, a few words may be said. It is known that\nbirds who die of fright are poisonous. That is because the violence of\nthe emotion, by some chemical action, evolves poison.\n\nIt is also known that when the human system is out of order it secretes\npoison. This poison affects the brain, and excites the baser passions,\nor injures the moral sense.\n\nSelf-poisoning may be due to the presence of poisonous matter in the\nsystem, or to the over-strain, or over-excitement, of business, or\ntrouble.\n\nWe all know the effects of violent anger, of violent grief, or violent\nlove, or violent emotion of any kind upon the health. We know also the\neffect of \"worry,\" and the effects of fatigue and of improper food.\n\nOne of these effects is self-poisoning, and one of the results of\nself-poisoning is brain sickness, resulting often in vice or in crime.\n\nWe find, then, that disease may be caused by neglect in childhood, by\nstarvation or improper food, by over-work, by terror, by excitement, and\nby worry, amongst a thousand other causes.\n\nAnd we find that disease affects the brain, and very often leads to\nvice, to crime, to dishonesty, falsehood, and impurity.\n\nAnd disease is one part of our environment.\n\nA wound or a shock may have a wonderful effect on the mind. A man may\nslip and strike his head on a stone, and may get up an idiot A gunshot\nwound in the neck, a sword-cut on the head, may cause madness, or may\ncause an injury of the brain which will quite change the injured man's\nmoral nature.\n\nAs to the effects of such accidents on the mind there are many\ninteresting particulars in Lombroso's book, _The Man of Genius_, from\nwhich I am tempted to quote some lines:\n\nIt has frequently happened that injuries to the head, and acute\ndiseases, those frequent causes of insanity, have changed a very\nordinary individual into a man of genius.... Gratry, a mediocre singer,\nbecame a great master after a beam had fractured his skull. Mabillon,\nalmost an idiot from childhood, fell down a stone staircase at the\nage of twenty-six, and so badly injured his skull that it had to be\ntrepanned; from that time he displayed the characteristics of genius....\nWallenstein was looked upon as a fool until one day he fell out of a\nwindow, and henceforward began to show remarkable ability.\n\nLombroso also gives many examples and proofs of the influence of weather\nand climate on the mind; but for these I have no room.\n\nNow, disease, and weather, and climate, and injuries are all parts of\nenvironment.\n\nFood\n\nWe have seen that one cause of insanity and disease, and of immorality\nand crime, is degeneration. And we have seen that one cause of\ndegeneration is \"insufficient or improper food.\"\n\nChildren who are half starved suffer in body and in mind: therefore they\nsuffer in intelligence and in morals.\n\nSays Dr. Hall, of Leeds:\n\nIt matters but little whether a child be born and bred in a palace or\na cottage--of pure pedigree or mongrel--if he does not receive a proper\nsupply of bone-making food he will not make a good bony framework, which\nis the first essential of true physical well-being.\n\nAmongst the poor it is a common thing for children to want food: not to\nhave enough food. This is not the fault of the children, but is due to\nthe poverty of their parents.\n\nBut it is common also amongst the poor for children to be fed upon\nimproper food. Quite young infants, babies, indeed, are often fed upon\nsalt fish, rancid bacon, impure milk. Cases are too numerous in which\nbabies are given beer, gin, coarse and badly cooked meat, inferior\nbread, and tea.\n\nThis is not the fault of the children, but is due to the ignorance of\ntheir parents.\n\nThe results of such feeding, and of such starvation, are weakness,\npoorness of blood, deafness, sore eyes, defective intelligence, rickets,\nepilepsy, convulsions, consumption; degeneration and death.\n\nProfessor Cunningham says:\n\nOne point which is established beyond all question is the remarkable\ninfluence which environment and nurture exercise upon the development\nand growth of the child, as well as upon the standard of physical\nexcellence attained by the adult According to the statistics supplied to\nthe British Association Committee, children vary to the extent of 5 in.\nin stature, and adults to the extent of 3 1/2 in. in stature, according\nas the circumstances under which they are reared are favourable or\notherwise.\n\nDr. R. J. Collie, M.D., speaking of the mentally defective children in\nthe London Board Schools, says:\n\nIn a large number of instances, after the careful individual attention\nand mid-day dinner of the special schools, they are returned, after from\nsix to eighteen months, to the elementary school with a new lease of\nmental vigour. These children are functionally mentally defective. Their\nbrains are starved, and naturally fail to react to the ordinary methods\nof elementary teaching. In a certain proportion of the cases it is the\nresult of semi-starvation.\n\nThe headmaster of a large school in London said to a Press\nrepresentative:\n\nNot 5 per cent, of my 400 boys know the taste of porridge. New bread,\nand margarine at fourpence per pound, with a scrap of fried fish and\npotatoes at irregular intervals, is responsible for their pinched,\nunhealthy appearance and their stunted growth.\n\nDr. Lydston, in _The Diseases of Society_, says:\n\nThe quantity, quality, and assimilation of food pabulum is the keynote\nof stability of tissue-building. With the source of the architect's own\nenergy sapped by innutrition, and the materials brought to his hand\nmade pernicious or defective in quality or insufficient in quantity,\nstructural degeneracy must needs result. The importance of this as\nregards the brain is obvious. It bears directly upon the question of the\nrelation of malnutrition to social pathology.\n\nSo much has been written and said of late about the evil effects of\nstarvation and improper food upon the health and minds of children,\nand so much and such strong evidence has been put forward as to the\nseriousness and the prevalence of the evil, that I need not go more\nfully into the matter here.\n\nMillions of children are ruined in body and mind, millions of\ndegenerates are made by bad feeding or under-feeding.\n\nAnd the good and the bad feeding are both part of our environment.\n\nPoverty, Labor, and Overcrowding\n\nAs the health affects the brain, and the brain the morals, all healthy\nand unhealthy influences have a moral bearing.\n\nBad air, bad water, bad drainage, bad ventilation, damp and dark streets\nand houses, dirtiness and over-crowding, all tell against the health,\nagainst the health of children most seriously, and all help on the\ndeadly progress of degeneration.\n\nGreyness and monotony of life, unclean, unsightly, and sordid\nsurroundings, tedious and soulless toil, all tend to blunt the senses,\nto cloud the mind, and to oppress the spirit.\n\nMillions of the working poor, who live in great and noisy cities, whose\nneighbourhoods are vast, huddled masses of sunless streets and airless\ncourts, whose lives are divided between joyless labour and joyless\nleisure; the conditions of whose comfortless and crowded homes are such\nas make cleanliness and decency and self-respect well nigh impossible:\nmillions of men, women, and children are here starved in soul as well as\nin body.\n\nThese people, throughout their anxious and laborious lives, sleep in\nthe overcrowded cottages and tenements, ride in the overcrowded and\ninconvenient third-class carriages, sit in the crowded and stifling\ngalleries at the theatre, are regaled with crudest melodrama, the\ncoarsest humour, the most vapid music. When they read they have the\nYellow Press and the literature of crime. When they get to the\nseaside they spend their brief and rare holiday in the rowdiest of\nwatering-places.\n\nThey have no taste for anything higher? True. They have never been\ntaught to know the highest. And their ignorance, and their slums, and\ntheir clownish pleasures, are part of their environment We need not ask\nwhether such environment makes for culture, for joy, for health.\n\nThey have no refinement in their lives, these poor working millions.\nThey have no flowers, no trees, no fields, no streams; no books, no art,\nno healthy games.\n\nWorse than that, perhaps, they are paid neither honour nor respect: they\nare without pride and ambition; they have no ideals, no hope.\n\nThe environment that denies to human beings all pride and honour and\nhope, all art and nature and beauty, does not make for health, nor for\nmorality.\n\nThe straitness of means, the uncertainty of employment, the looming\nshadow of hunger and the workhouse, send some to suicide and some to\ncrime, but leave the impress of their dreaded and evil presence upon the\nhearts and minds of nearly all.\n\nWe must remember that these poor creatures human. The difference between\nthem and us is more a difference of environment than of heredity. The\nhunger for pleasure, for excitement and romance, is as strong in their\nsoul as in ours. Like ourselves, they cannot live by bread alone.\nExcitement, pleasure of some kind, they must have, will have. The hog\nis contented to snore in his sty, the cat is happy with food and a place\nbefore the fire; but the human being needs food for the soul as well as\nfor the body. And there is ample environment to feed the hunger of the\nignorant and the poor for excitement: the environment of betting, and\nvice, and adulterated drink.\n\nIn the poor districts the drinking dens are planted thickly. There is\nmoney to be made. And they are blatant and frowsy places, and the drink\nis rubbish--or poison.\n\nI have seen much of the poor. I could tell strange, pathetic histories\nof the slums, the mines, the factories: of the workhouses and the\nworkhouse school, and the police-courts where the poor are unfairly\ntried and unjustly punished.\n\nLet me dip back into some of my past work, and show a few pictures. Here\nis a rough sketch of the women in the East End slums:\n\n\nWOMEN IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE WORLD\n\n\"Have you any reverence for womanhood? Are you men? If you come here and\nlook upon these women, you shall feel a burning scorn for the blazoned\nlies of English chivalry and English piety and English Art.\n\n\"Drudging here in these vile stews day after day, night after night;\nalways with the wolf on the poor doorstep gnashing his fangs for the\nclinging brood; always with the black future, like an ominous cloud\ncasting its chill shadow on their anxious hearts; always with the mean\nwalls hemming them in, and the mean tasks wearing them down, and the\nmean life paralysing their souls; often with brutal husbands to coax\nand wait upon and fear; often with loafing blackguards--our poor\nbrothers--living on their earnings; with work scarce, with wages low,\nin vile surroundings, and with faint hopes ever narrowing, these London\nwomen face the unrelenting, never-ceasing tide of inglorious war.\n\n\"If you go there and look upon these women, you will feel suddenly\nstricken old. Look at their mean and meagre dress, look at their warped\nfigures, their furrowed brows, their dim eyes. In how many cases are the\npoor features battered, and the poor skins bruised? What culture have\nthese women ever known; what teaching have they had; what graces of life\nhave come to them; what dowry of love, of joy, of fair imagination? As\nI went amongst them through the mud and rain, as I watched them plying\ntheir needles on slop-garments, slaving at the wash-tub, gossiping or\nbandying foul jests in their balcony cages, drinking at the bars with\nthe men--the thought that rose up most distinctly in my mind was, 'What\nwould these poor creatures do without the gin?'\n\n\"The gin--that hellish liquor which blurs the hideous picture of life,\nwhich stills the gnawing pain, which stays the crushing hand of despair,\nand blunts the grinding teeth of anguish when the child lies dead of the\nrickets, or the 'sticks' are sold for the rent, or the sweater has no\nmore work to give, or the husband has beaten and kicked the weary flesh\nblack and blue! What would they do, these women, were it not for the\nDevil's usury of peace--the gin?\n\n\"My companion took me to a bridge across a kind of dock, and told me\nit was known thereabouts as 'The Bridge of Sighs.' There is a constable\nthere on fixed-point duty. Why? _To prevent the women from committing\nsuicide_. The suicides were so numerous, he said, that special\nprecautions had to be taken. And since the constable has been set there,\nso eager are the women to quit this best of all possible worlds that\nthey have been known to come there at night with a couple of women\nfriends, and to leap into the deep, still water while those friends\nengaged the constable in conversation.\n\n\"Do you understand it? The woman has been wronged until she can endure\nno more; she has sunk till she can struggle no longer; she has been\nbeaten and degraded until she loathes her life--even gin has ceased\nto buy a respite; or she is too poor to pay for gin, and she drags her\nbroken soul and worn-out body to the Bridge of Sighs, and her friends\ncome down to help her to escape from the misery which is too great for\nflesh and blood to bear. It is a pretty picture, is it not? While our\nsweet ladies are sighing in the West End theatre over the imaginary\nsorrows of a Manon Lescaut or repeating at church, with genteel reserve,\nthe prayer for 'all weak women and young children'--here to the Bridge\nof Sighs comes the battered drudge, to seek for death as for a hidden\ntreasure, and rejoice exceedingly because she has found a grave.\"\n\nMany of these poor women, perhaps most, are mothers. What kind of\nenvironment, what land of stamina can they give their children?\n\n\"Take care of the women, and the nation will take care of itself.\" Here\nis another sketch from the _life_, taken in the chain and nail-making\ndistricts of Staffordshire.\n\n\nBRITONS NEVER, NEVER, SHALL\n\n\"In the chain shops of the Black Country the white man's burden presses\nsore. It presses upon the women and the children with crushing weight.\nIt racks and shatters and ruptures the strongest men; it bows and twists\nand disfigures the comeliest women, and it makes of the little children\nsuch premature ruins that one can hardly look upon them without tears or\nthink of them without anger and indignation.\n\n\"At Cradley I saw a white-haired old woman carrying half a hundredweight\nof chain to the fogger's round her shoulders; at Cradley I saw women\nmaking chain with babies sucking at their breasts; at Cradley I spoke\nto a married couple who had worked 120 hours in one week and had earned\n18s. By their united labour; at Cradley I saw heavy-chain strikers who\nwere worn-out old men at thirty-five; at Cradley I found women on strike\nfor a price which would enable them to earn twopence an hour by dint\nof labour which is to work what the Battle of Inkerman was to a Bank\nHoliday review. At Cradley the men and the women are literally being\nworked to death for a living that no gentleman would offer his dogs.\"\n\nThence to the domestic workshops. Old women, young girls, wives and\nmothers working as if for dear life. Little children, unkempt and\nwoebegone, crouching amongst the cinders. No time for nursing or\nhousewifery in the chain trade. These women earned from 6s. to 9s. a\nweek. Some of them are, I see, in an advanced state of pregnancy.\n\nAnd what pleasures have these people: what culture and beauty in their\nlives? This:\n\n\"Were they ever so anxious to 'improve their minds,' what leisure have\nthey, what opportunity? Their lives are all swelter and sleep. Their\ntown a squalid, hideous place, ill-lighted and unpaved--the paths and\nroads heel-deep in mire. Their houses are not homes--they have neither\ncomfort nor beauty, but are mere shelters and sleeping-pens.\n\n\"In all the place there is no news-room nor free library, nor even a\nconcert-hall or gymnasium. There is no cricket-ground, no assembly-room,\nno public bath, no public park, nor public garden. Throughout all that\nsordid, dolorous region I saw not so much as one tree, or flower-bed, or\nfountain. Nothing bright or fair on which to rest the eye.\n\n\"But there are public-houses. And in several of them I tasted the\nliquor, and spilled it on the floor.\"\n\nOf how many towns and villages in Europe and America might the same be\nsaid?\n\nOf how many women are these terrible descriptions true?\n\nIn the evidence given before the Royal Commission on Canal Labour, it\nwas stated in evidence that men and women often worked for seven days\nand nights on the canals, and in the winter.\n\nSome of the witnesses declared that the work was unfit for women, that\nit was \"degrading.\" The Royal Commissioners could not understand the\nword degrading, and asked how it could degrade a woman to steer a boat.\nHere is one reply given by an angry witness:\n\nDo you think it womanly work to push with a twenty-foot pole a boat\nladen with 30 tons of coal? If you saw a mother of a family climbing\na four-foot wall, you'd think it was no work for women. I have seen a\nwoman knocked into the lock with a child at her breast by a sudden blow\nof the tiller. I have seen my own sister-in-law climb the lock-gates at\none end to go and shut them at the other.\n\nMany of the \"cabins\" on the narrow boats are about seven feet by five.\nIn such cabins sleep the \"captain\" and his family; in one case a man and\nhis wife, a girl of ten, a couple of younger children, and two boys of\nfourteen and sixteen years of age.\n\nThose are a few glimpses of the environment of the women and the\nchildren of the poor.\n\nI cannot quit the subject without again telling an experience which hurt\nme like a wound. It was in a workhouse school: a school where master\nand matron did the best they could do for the children so unfortunately\nplaced.\n\nLove Hunger\n\n\"As we crossed a bridge from one building to another the master said\nsomething about a fish-pond, adding, 'We do not catch fish here, but we\ncatch a good many mice.'\n\n\"'Have you many mice?' I asked.\n\n\"'Yes,' said he, with a peculiar smile; 'there is hardly one of our big\nboys but has a live mouse in his pocket.'\n\n\"'A live mouse? What for?'\n\n\"'Well,' said the master, 'human nature is human nature, and the little\nfellows want something to love. Some time ago the inspector cautioned a\nboy about putting his hand in his pocket, and ordered him to be still.\nThe boy repeated the action, and as I guessed what was the cause, I\ncalled him out. He had a live mouse in his trousers pocket, and was\nafraid of its climbing out and showing itself in school. He took it out\non his hand It was quite tame.'\n\n\"But still more touching was a curious demonstration of the infants\nas we crossed their playground. Released from the restraint of parade\ndiscipline, these little creatures, girls and boys between three and\nseven years of age, came crowding round us. They took hold of our hands,\nseveral of them taking each hand; they stroked our clothes, and embraced\nour legs. Several of them seemed fascinated by my gold watch-guard (it\nis rather loud), and wanted to kiss it. I gave one the watch to play\nwith--my own children have often used it roughly--and his little eyes\ndilated with admiration. They followed us right up to the barrier, and\nshook hands with us.\n\n\"'That,' said the master, 'is a peculiarity of all workhouse children.\nThey will touch you. They will handle and kiss any glittering thing you\nhave about you. It is because you are from the outside world.'\"\n\nWhat an environment. It set me thinking of the stories I had read about\nsavages crowding round white men who have landed on their shores.\n\n\"From the outside world.\" \"Something to love.\" In England--where some\nfive millions a year are spent on hunting--such environment is forced\nupon an innocent and defenceless child.\n\nOne wonders as to the \"hooligan.\" and the tramp, and the harlot, and the\nsot; how were _they_ brought up, and had they anything to love?\n\n\nEDUCATION\n\nThere are many who under-rate the power of environment But there are\nfew who deny the value of education. And education is environment. All\neducation, good or bad, in the home or the school, is environment.\n\nAnd we all know, though some of us forget, that good education makes us\nbetter and that bad education makes us worse. And we all know, though\nsome of us forget, that we have to be educated by others, and that\nthose others are part of our environment. For even in the case of\nself-education we must learn from books, which were written by other\nmen.\n\nAnd if we take the word education in its widest sense, as meaning all\nthat we learn, the importance of this part of our environment stares\nus in the face. For as we are born not with morals, nor knowledge, nor\ncapacities, but only with the rudiments of such, it is plain to every\nmind that our goodness or badness, our ignorance or knowledge, our\nhelplessness or power, depends to a very great extent upon the kind of\nteaching we get.\n\nThe difference between the lout and the man of refinement is generally a\ndifference of education, of knowledge, and training.\n\nThe root cause of most prejudice and malice, of much violence, folly,\nand crime, is ignorance. There would be no despised and under-paid poor,\nno slums, no landless peasants, no serfs, were it not for the ignorance\nof the masses, _and_ the classes. The rich impose upon the poor, and the\npoor submit, for the one reason: they do not understand.\n\nIf they were taught better they would do better. And the better teaching\nwould be--improved environment.\n\nIt is not enough that people should be \"educated,\" in the narrow sense\nof the word. Teaching may do harm, as surely as it may do good. All\ndepends upon the things that are taught.\n\nMuch of the teaching in our Board Schools, our Public Schools, and our\nUniversities is _bad_.\n\nIf teaching is to be \"good environment,\" the teaching must be good.\n\nNational or local ideals are part of our environment. We are born into\nthese ideals as we are born into our climate, and few escape their rule.\n\nThe ideals of England are not good. To succeed, to make wealth, to win\napplause--these are not high ideals. To buy in the cheapest market and\nsell in the dearest; to make England the workshop of the world; to seize\nall rich and unprotected lands, and force their inhabitants into the\nBritish Empire--these are not great ideals.\n\nBut such national ideals are part of our environment, and tell against,\nor for, the development of our noblest human qualities.\n\nA gospel of greed, vanity, and empire does not tend to make a people\nmodest, nor just, nor kindly. Indeed, it is chiefly because of their\ngreediness for commerce and wealth, and their ambition for empire,\nthat the nations to-day are armed and jealous rivals. And it is chiefly\nbecause of their hunger for wealth, and their worship of vain display\nand empty honours, that the classes and the masses are hostile and\ndivided. Ignorance again: they do not understand.\n\nThe force of environment, and especially the uses of education,\nare stamped upon our proverbs, are bedded deep in universal custom.\n\"Knowledge is power,\" \"As the twig is bent----\" \"He who touches pitch\nshall be defiled,\" \"Evil communications corrupt good manners.\" And what\neducated parent would allow his children to grow up in ignorance, or\nwould expose them to the evil influences of impure literature or bad\ncompanions.\n\nEvery church and chapel, every school and college, every book\nthat teaches, every moral lesson, every chaperon and tutor, is an\nacknowledgment of the power of environment to wreck or save our young.\n\nIn practice we all fear or prize the influences of environment--upon\nourselves, and upon those we love.\n\nIt is when we have to deal with the \"Bottom Dog\" that we ignore the\nfacts which plead so strongly in his defence.\n\n\nPERSONAL INFLUENCES\n\nOf home influences it is hardly necessary to speak. The blessing of\na wise and good mother; the disaster of an ignorant, vicious, or\nneglectful mother call for no reminder. The influence of husbands and\nwives upon each other; the transformation wrought by a fortunate or\nunfortunate love passion in the life of a woman or a man are equally\nobvious and well understood. So with friendship: most men have known at\nleast one friend whose counsel, conversation, or example has affected\nthe entire current of their thoughts--perhaps has changed the direction\nof their life. These instances being noted, it remains for us only to\nremember that the influence of a wife, a lover, a mother, or a friend\nmay be as powerful for evil as for good.\n\nBut there are other personal influences as potent, but not so generally\nnor so wisely recognised. Such are the influences of good or bad books,\nand of great leaders and teachers--good and bad.\n\nWhat tremendous powers over the lives and thoughts of millions\nwere wielded by such teachers as Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, Plato,\nAristotle, and Jesus Christ.\n\nHow vast a difference was wrought amongst the masses of humanity by\nCaesar, Mahomet, Alexander, Oliver Cromwell.\n\nWho can estimate the importance to the world of Copernicus, Galileo;\nLuther, Calvin, Bacon, Darwin; of Rousseau, Wycliffe, Tyndall, Marx,\nHomer, Harvey, Watt, Caxton, and Stephenson?\n\nWhich of us can assess his debt to such men as Shakespeare, Dante,\nShelley, Dickens, and Carlyle?\n\nThen consider our account with the scientists, priests, and lawgivers of\nBabylon and Egypt. Recall the benefits conferred upon us by the men who\ninvented written language; the wheel, the file, the plough. Think of\nall the laborious and gradual building up of the arts, the ethics,\nthe sciences of the world. The making of architecture, mathematics,\nsculpture, painting, agriculture, working in wood or metals; the\nevolution of literature and music, the invention and improvement of\nthe many decencies, courtesies, and utilities of life; from the first\nwearing of loin cloths, the fashioning of flint axes, to the steel pen,\nthe use of chloroform, and the custom of raising one's hat to a lady.\n\nAll the arts and crafts; the ethics, sciences, and laws; the\ntools, arms, grammars; the literatures, dramas, and newspapers; the\nconveniences and luxuries, the morals and the learning--all that goes\nto the making of modern civilization we owe to the genius, the industry,\nand the humanity of countless men and women whom we have never seen.\n\nInto all the wealth of knowledge and freedom, of wisdom and virtue they\ncreated and bequeathed, we are born, as we are born to the light and the\nair. But for the labours and the sacrifices of the workers, fighters,\nand thinkers of the past we were shorn of all our pride and power,\nand reduced below the social, intellectual, and moral level of the\nAustralian Bushmen.\n\nAnd yet, to see the airs and graces of many educated and superior\npersons, one might suppose that they invented and discovered and\ndeveloped all the knowledge and wisdom, all the virtues and the graces\nby which they benefit, of their own act and thought. One would suppose,\nto behold the scorn of these superior persons for their more rude and\nignorant and unfortunate brothers and sisters, that _they_ had designed\nand tailored all the moral and intellectual finery in which they are\narrayed. Whereas all their plumes are borrowed plumes; all they know\nthey have been taught by other men; all they have has been made by other\nmen; and they have become that which they are through the generosity and\nthe tenderness of other men and women.\n\nThe rich young scholar fresh from Harvard or Cambridge is blessedly\nendowed with health, and strength and grammar, and mathematics, a\nsprinkle of dead languages, and more or less graceful manners. He\ndespises the lout at the plough or the coster at the barrow because of\ntheir lack of the benefits given to him as a dole. He forgets that the\nUniversity was there centuries before he was born, that Euclid, Lindley\nMurray, Dr. Johnson, Cicero, Plato, and a million other abler men than\nhimself, forged every link of the chain of culture with which his proud\nyoung neck is adorned. He forgets that it is to others, and not to\nhimself, that he owes all that makes him the man of whom he is so vain.\nHe forgets that the coster at the barrow and the hind at the plough\ndiffer from him chiefly by the accident of birth, and that had they\nbeen nursed and taught and trained like himself they would have been\nas handsome, as active, as clever, as cultured, and very probably as\nconceited and unjust as he.\n\nFor all the mighty dead, and the noble works they have bequeathed us,\nand all the faithful living, and all the tender services they render us\nand the shielding love they bear us, are parts of our environment.\n\nAnd for the blessings these good men and gentle women, with their golden\nheritage, have wrought in us, we are no more responsible and no\nmore praiseworthy than we are for the flowers of the field, or the\nconstellations in the sky, or the warmth of the beneficent sun that\nshines alike upon the sinner and the saint.\n\nAnd since we are but debtors to the dead, but starvelings decked out by\ncharity in the braveries made by other hands, and since we are deserving\nof no praise for our grandeur and our virtues, how shall we lift up our\nvainglorious and foolish faces to despise and contemn our less fortunate\nbrothers and sisters, who have been made evil, even as we have been\nmade good, who have been left uncouth and ignorant, even as we have been\npolished and instructed?\n\n\"But for the grace of God,\" said the tinker of Elstow--but for the\ngraces of environment, say we--there, in the hangman's cart, in the\nfelon's jacket, in the dunce's cap, in the beggar's rags, in the\ndegradation of the drunkard or the misery of the degenerate weed of the\nslums--go We.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN--HOW HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT WORK\n\nTHERE are many who have some understanding of heredity and of\nenvironment when taken separately who fail to realise their effects upon\neach other.\n\nThe common cause of the stumbling is easy to remove.\n\nIt is often said that two men are differently affected by the same\nenvironment, or what seems to be the same environment, and that\ntherefore there must be some power in men to \"overcome\" their\nenvironment.\n\nI have dealt with this argument already, showing that the contest\nbetween a man and his environment is really a contest between heredity\nand environment, and may be compared to the effort of a man to swim\nagainst a stream.\n\nA given environment will affect two different men differently because\ntheir heredity is different.\n\nBut remembering that we are born without any knowledge, and that we are\nborn not with intellect nor conscience, but only with the rudiments\nof such, it must be insisted that the hereditary power to resist\nenvironment is very limited. So much so that we may amend our figure of\nthe swimmer and the stream, and say that no man, howsoever strong and\nbrave, could swim against a stream unless he had learnt to swim.\n\nAnd the learning to swim is environment, and works against the contrary\nenvironment, typified by the stream.\n\nLet us take the case of two children. One has bad and one good heredity.\nOne is a healthy baby, born of moral stock. The other is a degenerate,\nborn of immoral stock. We will call the healthy baby Dick, and the\ndegenerate baby Harry.\n\nThey are taken at birth into an environment of theft, drunkenness, and\nvice. They are taught to lie, to steal, and to drink. They never hear\nany good, never see a good example.\n\nHarry, the degenerate, will take to evil as a duck to water. Of that, I\nthink, there is no question. But what of Dick, the healthy baby?\n\nDick is born without knowledge. He is also born with undeveloped\npropensities. He will learn evil. His propensities will be trained\nto evil. How is he to \"overcome his environment and become good\"? He\n_cannot_. What will happen in Dick's case is that he will become a\ndifferent kind of criminal--a stronger and cleverer criminal than Harry.\n\nBut, I hear some one say, \"we know that children, born of thieves and\nsots, and reared in bad surroundings, have turned out honest and sober\nmen.\" And the inference is that they rose superior to their environment.\n\nBut that inference is erroneous. The _fact_ is that these children were\nsaved by some _good_ environment, acting against the bad.\n\nFor there is hardly such a thing as an environment that is _all_ bad.\nIn the case of Dick and Harry we supposed an environment containing no\ngood. But that was for the sake of illustration.\n\nFor the environment to be _all_ bad, the child must be prevented from\never seeing a good deed, or reading a good book, or meeting a good man,\nwoman, or child.\n\nNow, we can imagine no town, nor slum, in which a child should never\nhear nor see anything good. He is almost certain at some time or other\nto encounter good influences.\n\nAnd these good influences will affect a healthy child more strongly than\nthey will affect a degenerate, just as the evil influences will affect\nhim less fatally than they will affect a degenerate. Because the poor\ndegenerate is born with a bias towards disease or crime.\n\nTwo children may be born of the same parents, reared in the same hovel,\nin the same slum, taught the same evil lesson. But they will meet\ndifferent companions, and will have different experiences.\n\nOne may meet a good boy, or girl, or man, or woman, and may be\ninfluenced for good. The other may chance upon the very worst company.\n\nLet us suppose that two children are born in a Hoxton slum, and that one\nof them falls under the influence of a Fagin, and the other has the good\nfortune to meet such a manly and sensible parson as our friend Cartmel!\nWould not the effects be very different? Yet at first sight the\nenvironment of the two boys would seem to be precisely alike.\n\nAnd we shall always find that the man who rises above his environment\nhas really been helped by good environment to overcome the bad\nenvironment He has learnt some good. And that learning is part of his\nenvironment He must have been _taught_ some good if he knows any, for he\nwas born destitute of knowledge.\n\nA good mother, a wise friend, a pure girl, an honest teacher, a noble\nbook, may save a child from the bad part of his environment.\n\nIt would appear at first sight that two boys taught in the same school,\nby the same teacher, would have the same school environment. But at a\nsecond thought we find that need not be the case.\n\nWe know what one bad boy can do in a class or in a room. We may know,\nthen, that the boys who share a class or a room with a bad boy have a\nworse environment than the boys who escape his evil influences.\n\nIt is a mistake to think of heredity as all good, or all bad. It is\nmixed. We inherit, _all_ of us, good and bad qualities.\n\nIt is a mistake to think of environment as all good or all bad. It is\nmixed. There are always good and bad influences around every one of us.\n\nIt is a mistake to think that any two men ever did or can have exactly\nthe same environment.\n\nIt is as impossible for the environment of any two men to be identical,\nas for their heredity to be identical. As there are no two men exactly\nalike, so there are no two men whose experiences are exactly alike.\n\nGood and bad environment work against each other. All kinds of\nenvironment work with or against heredity. Different heredities make\ndifferent natures; different natures are differently affected by similar\nenvironments. But the child, being born without knowledge and with\nrudimentary faculties, is, whatever his heredity, almost wholly at the\nmercy of his environment.\n\nI hope I have made that clear.\n\nOne man is afflicted with colour-blindness, another with kleptomania.\nThe kleptomaniac may be the most troublesome to the community; but is he\nmore wicked than the others?\n\nWhy does an apple tree never bear bananas? Because it cannot\n\nWhy does a French peasant never speak English? Because he has never been\ntaught.\n\nWhy is an English labourer deficient in the manners of polite society?\nBecause he has never moved in polite society.\n\nWhy does not Jones the engineer write poetry? Why does not Smith of\nthe Stock Exchange paint pictures? Why does not Robinson the musical\ncomposer invent a flying machine?\n\nBecause they have not the gifts nor the skill.\n\nWhy does Jarman play the violin so evilly? He has no ear, and has been\nbadly taught. Why does Dulcett play the violin so well? He has a good\near, and has been taught properly.\n\nWould proper teaching have made a Jarman a proper player? It would have\nmade him a less villainous player than he has become. But teach him\nnever so wisely, Jarman will not play as Dulcett plays. He has not _the\ngift_.\n\nIs it Jarman's fault that he has no gift? It is not. He did not make his\nown ear. Whence did he derive that defect of ear? From some ancestor,\nnear or remote.\n\nIs Dulcett's fine musical ear due to any merit of Dulcett's? No. He did\nnot make his own ear; he derived it from some ancestor, near or remote.\n\nHere are four brothers Brown. John Brown is a drunkard. Thomas, William,\nand Stephen Brown do not drink. Does John deserve censure, and do his\nbrothers deserve praise? Let us see.\n\nWhy is John a drunkard? His grandfather was a drunkard, and he was\nsent as a boy to work in a shop where the men drank. Then how is it his\nbrothers do not drink? Thomas had the same hereditary inclination to\ndrink, and he derived it from the same source. But he worked in\nan office where all the clerks were steady, and when on one or two\noccasions he indulged in liquor, a wise friend warned him, and with a\nhard struggle he escaped from the danger.\n\nWilliam, although the same blood runs in his veins, has escaped the\nhereditary taint To use the colloquial parlance, \"he does not take after\nhis grandfather.\" He never felt inclined to take liquor, and although he\nworked with men who drank, he remained steady without an effort.\n\nStephen also was free from the hereditary taint. He mixed with men who\ndrank, and he gradually formed the habit, which gradually formed the\ntaste for drink. But he married a good woman just in time, and she saved\nhim. Thus:\n\nJohn is a drunkard from heredity and environment\n\nThomas was a drunkard from heredity, and was saved by environment.\n\nWilliam was always steady from heredity and environment.\n\nStephen was steady from heredity, almost became a drunkard from\nenvironment, and was finally saved by new environment.\n\nJohn owed his ruin to his grandfather and his shopmates.\n\nThomas owed his safety to his shopmates, who rescued him from the taint\nof his grandfather's evil legacy.\n\nWilliam owed his safety to his blood.\n\nStephen, after being endangered by his companions, was saved by his\nwife.\n\nAssuming all other conditions to be equal, and all other traits of\ncharacter similar, how are we to blame one or praise another of these\nfour brothers? Each is what descent and surroundings have made him.\n\nAn apple tree cannot bear bananas. A rose tree cannot bear lilies. A\nrose tree in good soil bears well; a rose tree in bad soil bears poorly.\nIn times of drought the crops perish for lack of water. In rainy weather\nthe hay rots instead of drying.\n\nLet us now consider some of the arguments actually used in denying the\npower of environment.\n\nSome little time ago the Rev. R. J. Campbell, of the London City Temple,\npreached a sermon on environment. From a report of that sermon I take\nthe following passage:\n\nHis argument was that it was all nonsense to say that environment made\nthe man. The man who had any manhood in him could rise above and beyond\nhis environment, just as Bunyan soared above his tin kettles.\n\nThis is an example of the confusion of mind into which educated men fall\nwhen they deal with this simple subject.\n\nMr. Campbell's first mistake is the mistake of separating heredity from\nenvironment. Of course, it is nonsense to say that environment makes the\nman. But who did say anything so silly?\n\nHeredity \"makes the man,\" and environment modifies him. Having made that\nclear, let us consider Mr. Campbell's second sentence:\n\nThe man who had any manhood in him could rise above and beyond his\nenvironment, just as Bunyan soared above his tin kettles.\n\nMr. Campbell says: \"The man who has any manhood in him.\" But suppose\nhe has not any manhood in him! Suppose he is a poor human weed born\nof weeds. Can he bear wheat or roses? And if he only bears prickles or\npoison, who is to blame? Not the man, surely, for he did not choose his\nparents nor his nature. Shall we blame a mongrel born of curs of low\ndegree' because he is not a bulldog?\n\nA man can only realise the nature that he has, and can only realise that\nin accordance with environment.\n\nBut this same sentence shows that Mr. Campbell does not understand what\nwe mean when we use the word \"environment\".\n\nFor he tells us that a man can rise above and beyond his environment.\n\nNow, a man's environment is composed of every external influence which\naffects him in any way, from the moment of his birth to the moment of\nhis death.\n\nTherefore a man cannot rise above and beyond his environment until he\nceases to exist.\n\nMr. Campbell cites John Bunyan as a man who \"rose above his\nenvironment.\" The fact being that Bunyan's good environment saved him\nfrom his bad environment.\n\nFrom the preface to my edition of _The Pilgrim's Progress_ I quote the\nfollowing suggestive words:\n\nHow was it, one naturally asks, that a man of little education could\nproduce two centuries ago a masterpiece which is still read wherever the\nEnglish language is spoken, and has been translated into every European\ntongue? It is not sufficient to answer that the author of the work was a\ngenius: it is necessary to show _what the conditions were which enabled\nhis genius to develop itself_, led him to find the form of expression\nwhich best suited its character, and secured for what if produced\nimmediate popularity and lasting fame.\n\nBunyan was a poor boy of very little education. But he was born with a\ngreat imagination, a sensitive nature, and keen powers of assimilation.\nHe was, in short, a born literary genius.\n\nIn his youth he got amongst bad companions, and led a lewd and wicked\nsort of life.\n\nHow, then, came he to reform his life, and to write his wonderful book?\nTo listen to Mr. Campbell, one would suppose that the tinker's boy\nrose against his environment, and without any help for good from that\nenvironment. But did he?\n\nWe find he served for some years in Cromwell's army. Would the fierce\nreligious atmosphere of Cromwellian camps have no effect upon his\nsensitive and imaginative nature?\n\nWe find that he and his wife read together two religious books: _The\nPlain Man's Pathway to Heaven_ and Bishop Bayley's _Practice of Piety_.\nWould such books, so read, make no impression upon his impressionable\nmind?\n\nWe find that he was drawn to go to church. That he was \"over-run with\nthe spirit of superstition.\" Would that affect him naught?\n\nWe find that his neighbours at last took him \"to a very godly man, a new\nand religious man, _and did much marvel_ to see such a great and famous\nalteration in my life and manners.\"\n\nBeyond this we need not go. The religious soldiers of Cromwell, the\npious books and the pious wife, the spirit of superstition, and the\ngodly man, were all parts of John Bunyan's environment, and, acting upon\nthe peculiar nature given to him by heredity, these and other facts of\nhis environment lifted him up, made him what we know, and enabled him to\nwrite his glorious book. Instead of a man who rose above his environment\nwe have in Bunyan a man who was led by one kind of environment to gamble\nand drink and blaspheme, and by another kind of environment was made\ninto a fanatical religious enthusiast.\n\nJohn Bunyan was John Bunyan when he played tipcat, and used profane\nlanguage on the Sabbath. Up to that time the \"manhood that was in him\"\nhad not saved John Bunyan.\n\nIf, as Mr. Campbell suggests, it is the inherent manhood that saves\na man, how was it that Bunyan's manhood, up to a certain point in his\nlife, failed to raise him above his environment.\n\nAnd, when the change came, what was it that brought that change about?\nBunyan had only the same manhood: the same manhood which had already\nbeen defeated by the environment. How was it that same manhood now\nserved to raise him above the environment?\n\nJohn Bunyan was the same John Bunyan; it was the environment that\nchanged. It was the pious Ironsides, the pious wife, the godly man, the\natmosphere of superstition, that made John Bunyan the profane tinker\ninto John Bunyan the man of religion.\n\nBad environment got John Bunyan down: there is no doubt of that. Good\nenvironment lifted him up. The manhood was the same at both periods. It\nwas the environment that changed.\n\nIf ever there was an example of the power of environment to save or sink\na man, that example is John Bunyan, tinker and poet.\n\nAnother instance of misunderstanding is afforded by Mr. G. K.\nChesterton, who, in an article in the _Daily News_, argues against the\npower of heredity and environment, as follows:\n\nThe well-bred man--literally speaking, that is the man with a heredity\nand environment much above the normal--can put forth all the cardinal\nsins like scarlet flowers in summer. He has lands that meet the horizon,\nbut he steals like a starving man. He has had armies of comrades in\ngreat colleges, yet he snarls like a hunchback hissed in the street He\nhas treasuries of gold that he cannot remember; yet he goads poor men\nfor their rent like a threadbare landlady in the Harrow Road. He is\nonly meant to be polite in public, and he cannot even be that. The whole\nsystem of his country and constitution only asks one thing of him, that\nhe should not be an unpresentable beast--and he often is. That is a type\nof aristocrat that does from time to time recur to remind us of what is\nthe real answer to the argument for aristocracy founded on heredity and\nenvironment. The real answer to it is in two words--Original Sin.\n\nHad Mr. Chesterton understood the subject upon which he wrote the above\npicturesque but fallacious paragraph, he never would have sent it to\nthe Press. But he is always falling into blunders about heredity and\nenvironment because he has never learnt what heredity and environment\nare.\n\nHe seems to think that the West End means good environment, and that the\nEast End means bad environment. He seems to think that noble blood means\ngood heredity, and that simple blood means bad heredity.\n\nAnd he calls atavism \"original sin.\"\n\nLet us now consider the rather melodramatic nobleman Mr. Chesterton has\nportrayed for us.\n\nHe does not tell us much about the nobleman's environment. He has lands\nand wealth, and has been to college.\n\nDoes it tend to the moral elevation of a man to be like the \"Chough\" in\nShakespeare, \"spacious in the possession of dirt\"? Are the wise men\nof all ages agreed that the possession of great wealth is a good\nenvironment? Or do they not rather teach that luxury and wealth are\ndangerous to their possessor?\n\nIn so far as this noble was a very wealthy man, I should say that his\nenvironment was not good, but bad.\n\nThere remains the college. Now, men may learn good at colleges, and they\nmay learn bad. Is not that so? But let us give Mr. Chesterton the credit\nand score the college down as good environment.\n\nThere remains unaccounted for--what? All the life and experiences of a\nrich young man.\n\nWhat were his parents like? Did his mother nurse him, or neglect him?\nDid his father watch over him, or let him run wild? Were his companions\nall men and women of virtue and good sense? Did he read no bad books?\nDid he make no dangerous friendships? Did he ever do any work? Was\nhe ever taught that there art nobler ways of life than shooting dumb\nanimals, seducing vain or helpless girls, debauching at bachelors'\nparties, playing at bridge, reading French novels, and running loose in\nthe gilded hells of Europe and America?\n\nBecause, until we have these and a few thousand other questions\nanswered, we cannot accept Mr. Chesterton's assurance that this wicked\nnobleman had a good environment.\n\nThen, as to that question of \"original sin.\" Is Mr. Chesterton in a\nposition to inform us that his bold bad peer is not a degenerate? Is\nMr. Chesterton sure that he has not inherited a degenerate nature from\ndiseased or vicious ancestors?\n\nNo insanity in the family? No gout? No consumption? No drunkenness? No\ndiseases contracted through immorality or vice? All his family for a\nhundred generations back certified as having united \"the manners of a\nmarquis and the morals of a Methodist\"?\n\n_Quite_ sure the noble was _not_ a degenerate? _Quite_ sure that his\nfailure was not due to bad environment instead of to bad heredity?\n\nThen I should advise Mr. Chesterton to study Darwin, Galton, Lombroso,\nWeissmann, and Dr. Lydston, and he will find that a man of good descent\nmay cast back, or \"breed back,\" to the ape or hog, may be born an\natavist; and may be incapable of being a gentleman for the simple\nreason that he is a wild beast.\n\nIn which connection I may remark that in _The Diseases of Society_ Dr.\nLydston mentions that Benedikt's experiments upon criminal skulls showed\nthat the skull of \"the born criminal\" (atavist) \"approximates that\nof the carnivora.\" That is to say, a man may be cursed with a skull\nresembling that of a tiger.\n\nIs it any wonder that such men, to repeat Mr. Chesterton's poetical\nsimile, \"put forth sins like scarlet flowers in summer\"?\n\nI am grateful to Mr. Campbell and to Mr. Chesterton for their arguments:\nthey serve the useful purpose of exemplifying the confusion of thought\nupon this subject which exists in quarters where we should least expect\nto find it.\n\nAs it is of the utmost importance that we should thoroughly understand\nthe relations to each other of heredity and environment, this being a\nsubject upon which there is much stumbling, we shall do well to make\nquite sure of our ground before we go a step farther.\n\nIt is erroneous to speak of \"a struggle between a man and his\nenvironment,\" or of a man \"rising above his environment\".\n\nWhat we call \"a man\" is a product of heredity _and_ environment.\n\nThe \"man\" is largely what environment has already made him.\n\nAt the instant of birth a child may be regarded as wholly a product of\nheredity. But his first breath is environment. The first touch of the\nnurse's hands is environment. The first washing, the swaddling clothes,\nthe \"binder,\" and the first drop of mother's milk are parts of his\nenvironment.\n\nAnd from the first moment of his birth until the time of his manhood, he\nis being continually moulded and affected by environment.\n\nAll his knowledge, all his beliefs, all his opinions are given to him by\nenvironment.\n\nAnd now, with this in our mind, we can see the absurdity of Mr.\nCampbell's talk about John Bunyan.\n\nBefore his conversion Bunyan was already \"a creature of heredity _and_\nenvironment.\" The very conscience of the man, which his wife, and the\ngodly man, and Cromwell's soldiers, and the preachings in the church he\nfrequented, were to awaken, had been created _by_ environment.\n\nFor a child is born without conscience: with only the rudiments of a\nconscience, to be developed or destroyed--by environment.\n\nNow let us reconsider the example of our swimmer and the stream. The\nswimmer is something more than a mere \"heredity.\" He is a man, and\nhe has learnt to swim. Therefore in his battle with the stream of\nenvironment he is using heredity _and_ environment For environment\ntaught him to swim.\n\nLet us take another simile. A man is rowing a boat across a bay. The\ntide, the currents, and the wind may be regarded as environments. All\nthese environments may be with him, or against him. Or the tide may be\nagainst him, and the wind in his favour, and the currents dangerous if\nnot avoided.\n\nBut \"the man\" is largely what environments have made him. His\nknowledge of rowing came from environment, his knowledge of the bay\nis environment, his knowledge of the run and position of the\ndangerous currents is environment, the boat and the oars belong to his\nenvironment.\n\nAnd with all the useful and favourable environments, _plus_ his\nhereditary qualities, he fights the adverse environments of the wind,\nand the tide, and the currents.\n\nNow, let us suppose the sea to be rough, and the tide and wind strong,\nand against the oarsman. And then let us imagine the cases of two men,\none of whom was an expert sailor, in a good boat, well found, and one\na landsman, who could not row, who did not know the bay, who did not\nunderstand wind and tide, who was ignorant of the currents, who had bad\noars and a leaky boat.\n\nIt is evident that the sailor would have a chance of getting safely\nacross the bay, and that the landsman would be in grave peril of being\ncapsized, or carried out to sea.\n\nAnd the difference between the sailor and the landsman would be entirely\na difference of environment.\n\nBut suppose, farther, that the sailor was of healthy descent, that he\nwas, by heredity, strong, and brave, and intelligent; and suppose that\nthe landsman was a degenerate: weak, nervous, fainthearted, and stupid;\nthen the difference would be one of heredity and environment.\n\nAnd if the landsman were drowned and the sailor came safely to shore,\nshould we curse and revile the one, and applaud and reward the other. Or\nshould we take the sailor's success as a matter of course, and give our\npity to the landsman?\n\nWell: in such a crazy boat, with such useless oars, with such a faint\nheart, a lack of knowledge and skill, and such a feeble mind, does the\n\"Bottom Dog\" put out, to wrestle with the winds and storms, and escape\nthe dangerous currents of life.\n\nAnd how can we expect the badly bred, badly trained, badly taught\ndegenerate to succeed like the well-bred, well-trained, and well-taught\nhero?\n\nWhat Mr. Campbell calls John Bunyan's \"manhood\"--the manhood that\n\"raised him above his environment\"--was largely composed of environment.\n\nThere never yet has been a hero whose heroism was not in a great measure\ndue to his environment. Let any one who doubts this look back to our\nsuggestions of the fate of a child born into evil environments.\n\nEvery man is largely what environment has made him. No man can be\nindependent of environment: but for environment he could never live to\nbe a man at all.\n\nAnd now let us consider some of the good and evil things environment may\ndo.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER EIGHT--GOOD AND BAD SURROUNDINGS\n\nTHERE are many who always think of environment as something bad.\n\nWe hear a good deal about men who \"rise above their environment\"; but we\nseldom hear of men who are uplifted by their environment.\n\nYet, as I have shown, no man rises above bad environment unless he is\nhelped by good environment.\n\nThose who dread the power of environment cannot have given much thought\nto the subject.\n\nInstead of being a menace to the human race, the power of environment is\nthe source of our brightest hope.\n\nEnvironment has shaped evolution, and has raised man above the beasts.\nEnvironment has created morality and conscience.\n\nEnvironment, feared as a power for evil, is also a power for good. If\nbad teaching, and evil surroundings make bad men; then good teaching,\nand good surroundings will make good men.\n\nIf bad food, bad air, ignorance, and vice, degrade mankind; then good\nfood, good air, knowledge, and temperance will uplift mankind.\n\nIf men and women are largely that which environment makes them, then, by\nimproving the environment we can improve men and women.\n\nAnd here I come into touch with a certain school of dismal scientists\nwho would have us believe that it is useless to improve environment,\nbecause men are what heredity makes them, and because we cannot control\nheredity.\n\nLet us dispose of these pessimists before we go any farther. Happily,\nthe cases in which heredity is stronger than environment are few.\n\nEnvironment cannot make a model citizen of the \"born criminal,\" or\natavist. But good environment will make the worst man better than he\nwould be under bad environment.\n\nEnvironment cannot make a genius. No amount of feeding, training, and\nteaching will make an average man into a Shakespeare, or a Plato.\nBut good environment will do more for the dullest of men than bad\nenvironment will do.\n\nEnvironment cannot prevent atavism. It may happen that the best of stock\nwill \"breed back\" to a lower type. It may happen that a criminal or an\nincapable will crop out suddenly in a line of good and intelligent men\nand women. But good environment will abolish degeneracy, as certainly as\nbad environment will cause it.\n\nFor the occasional genius we need feel no concern. He will come when\nheredity produces him; and he is welcome. And for the atavist, or \"born\ncriminal,\" we may be thankful that he is comparatively rare, and may\ncontent ourselves with doing the best we can with him, in future,\ninstead of the worst, as heretofore.\n\nI am assuming that the worst type of born criminal is quite hopeless;\nbut I am not sure of that. We can tame wild beasts, and why not wild\nmen?\n\nBut the dismal scientists will tell us that even good environment\ncannot improve the race, because \"acquired characteristics cannot be\ntransmitted\": which is to say that knowledge cannot be handed down\nhereditarily from father to son, and that, therefore, all that the best\nenvironment can do is to begin at the beginning with each generation, to\nteach and train them.\n\nI deny that, and will give my reasons. But suppose we admit it. What\nfollows?\n\nIs it not better to teach and to train each generation well, than to\nteach and train them ill?\n\nIf mental and physical culture cannot be handed down; if the children\nof the educated and the well-developed must be born uneducated and\nundeveloped, is it not better to have a generation of strong and\ncultured men and women than a generation of degenerate weeds? Because\nwe cannot, by education, raise a breed of Washingtons and Darwins, and\nMiltons and Nelsons, are we to content ourselves with a population of\nhooligans and boors?\n\nIf environment cannot permanently improve the breed, is that any reason\nfor making the worst, instead of the best, of the breed we now possess?\n\nAnd now, as to that question of improving the breed, I claim that\nenvironment would improve the breed, and would improve it as it has\nimproved it in the past, by \"natural selection.\"\n\nHow do cattle-breeders improve their stock? By breeding from the best\nanimals, and not from the worst.\n\nMen of weak or base moral natures, and men of weak minds and bodies\nwill, I believe, generally reproduce their faults in their descendants.\nBut, to marry, they must find wives.\n\nI said a little way back, \"take care of your women, and the race will\ntake care of itself.\"\n\nGood environment would \"take care of the women.\" The women being\nproperly nursed, fed, taught, and honoured, would select partners who\nwould not shock them morally, nor disgust them physically.\n\nVirtuous, refined, and intelligent women do not, in general--there\nare exceptions--love and marry men of weak minds, nor men of diseased\nbodies, nor men of low moral type.\n\nTherefore, given proper environment, the \"born criminal\" and the mental\nweakling would not be able to find wives. But that is not the only\nway in which good environment would affect the breed. Nearly all\ndegeneration is caused by bad environment, and good environment would\nstop degeneration, and by that means would improve the mental, moral,\nand physical average.\n\nIt has been suggested, by some of the most dismal scientists, that to\nprevent the spread of degeneration we should prevent degenerates from\nmarrying. But I think a sounder method would be to stop the production\nof degenerates, by abolishing the environment that produces them.\n\nAs to the atavist, or \"born criminal,\" I would point out that one of the\nlaws of heredity is the tendency to \"revert to the normal.\" That is\nto say, genius and atavism do not \"persist.\" In a few generations the\natavist and the genius have bred back to the average level.\n\nThat, as I have pointed out, is due to the mixture of blood by marriage.\n\nThanks to this law, even the \"born criminal\" cannot often reappear. An\nexample of the working of this law is afforded by the descendants of the\nAustralian convicts, who have turned out excellent men and women.\n\nI think, then, that we need not be seriously troubled by the gloomy\nforebodings of our pessimists. With bad environment human nature has no\nchance: with good environment human nature will take care of itself.\n\nAnd now let us look at some of the facts in proof of the magical results\nof improved environment.\n\nI have before me a newspaper report of an interview with Mr. George\nJackson, secretary of the Middlemore Children's Emigration Homes. This\nsociety was founded some thirty years ago, and has since sent out to\nCanada more than three thousand children from the slums.\n\nThe children came from the worst of slums, and from the worst of homes.\nThey are spoken of by the reporter as being rescued from homes \"where\nthey are in daily contact with grinding poverty and misery, in an\natmosphere of moral and physical foulness, with parents who are drunken,\ncriminal, and inhuman.\" And of these three thousand waifs _not two in a\nhundred turned out badly_.\n\nTo give an idea of the working of a changed environment in the case of\nthese children, I will quote from the report of the _Birmingham Daily\nPost_:\n\nMr. Jackson's view ranges over some three thousand children of both\nsexes rescued from the very lowest haunts of misery and vice, picked up\nforlorn and deserted from the gutters of Birmingham, snatched from the\nevil influence of parents who had carried active cruelty or passive\nneglect to such terrible lengths that the retributive hand of human law\nhad at last fallen upon them, from parents who would have deliberately\nforced their offspring to mendicancy, to thievery, or to prostitution.\nThese three thousand worse than destitute little ones, these infants\n\"crying in the night, and with no language but a cry.\" who had started\ntheir sad lives on the very threshold of that dark door over which is\nwritten, \"All hope abandon,\" were rescued by kindly hands and carried\ninto the sunshine. For a time they were fed, and clothed, and\nschooled, taught that there was something more in life than squalor and\nselfishness and vice, and then they were taken thousands of miles away\nfrom those foul slums in which their eyes had first opened to the murky\nlight, their tender sensibilities first awakened to the bitter lesson\nof human pain and misery. They were taken to where God's fresh, free air\nsweeps across leagues of virgin forest and prairie, to where existence\nis vigorous, it may be, but healthy, and pure, and invigorating, to\nwhere conditions are such as to develop strong, self-reliant manhood,\ninstead of debased and neurotic criminality. It was in the complete and\nsweeping character of the change that lay the wisdom of the scheme. On\nthe lone backwood farmstead of Canada the slum child had no opportunity,\neven had he wished, of once more coming within the range of vicious\ninfluences such as he had left. There was no temptation to many of the\nvices with which cruel circumstances had made him so terribly familiar.\nHeredity of evil was cheated of its chances, and whatever tendencies\nto good remained were fostered and given full scope for development.\nFurther, the degraded relatives were no longer able to act the part of\na millstone around the child's neck, to fetter his every aspiration to\na better life, to drag him down or keep him down to their own dark\nstate.... Hundreds upon hundreds of prosperous farmers in Canada at this\nday can look back to the dim past, when they sold matches or papers, or\npicked up as best they could, in the streets of Birmingham, a few stray\ncoppers to take home to their dissolute parents; to the time when,\nwith empty stomachs and with the rain and snow beating through ragged\ngarments onto their little pinched bodies, they cried through the\nrigours of winter nights on a sheltered doorstep rather than face the\nblows and curses which awaited them in the only place which they could\ncall home. They were born to poverty and crime \"as the sparks fly\nupward,\" and they have lived to thank God for that kindly agency which\nrescued them from their inheritance of misery.\n\nOf these three thousand children two thousand nine hundred and forty\nwere saved--by a change of environment. Had the environment been left\nunchanged probably not 2 per cent, would have escaped ruin. As their\nparents were, so would they have been. Had their parents been rescued in\n_their_ youth only 2 percent of them would have failed.\n\nThe experience of Dr. Bamado and his friends with the children taken\nfrom the slums was very similar. The percentage of failures was small,\nand the London papers, in their obituaries of the good doctor, speak\nenthusiastically of the value of his work, and say that thousands of\nchildren rescued by him and his agents \"are now steady and prosperous\ncitizens beyond the seas.\" Since Dr. Bamado took up the work over\nfifty-five thousand children have been saved--by changed environment.\n\nFrom an article by Mr. R. B. Suthers in the _Clarion_ of August, 1904,\nI quote the following account of the George Junior Republic, an American\ninstitution, founded by Mr. William R. George, in 1896.\n\nThe Junior Republic is a collection of 100 hooligans, juvenile\ncriminals, and unfortunate boys and girls who live under a constitution\nbased on that of the United States. The government is government of the\ncitizens, for the citizens, and by the citizens. Children of all ages\nare admitted, but the rights of citizenship are not granted to those\nunder 12, and at 21 the juniors are drafted into the great republic\noutside. Schooling is compulsory up to the age of 16, after which the\ncitizen has the choice of many trades, in the Junior Republic, including\nfarming, carpentering, printing, dairying, or he may be a cook, waiter,\nstore keeper, or office boy. The girls may go in for dressmaking,\ncooking, and laundry work.\n\nThese boys and girls, recruited from the slums and the criminal forcing\nbeds of the great cities, _govern_ themselves. They make their own laws,\nappoint their own officials, run their own gaol, and are practically\nas free as the citizens of the big republic of which they become\nfull-fledged members when grown up.\n\nMr. George asserts that he has never known them when administering the\nlaw, to give an unjust or foolish decision.\n\nRemember they were hooligans, criminals, and wastrels.\n\nIt ought not to be necessary to argue that children well brought up will\nturn out better than children ill brought up. We all know that such must\nbe the case: we all see every day of our lives that, such is the case:\nwe all _know_ the power of environment for good as well as for evil. But\nfacts are stubborn things, and the above are stubborn facts.\n\nI have hitherto dealt almost wholly with the environment of the poor,\nbut it is needful also to say something as to the environment of the\nrich, as Mr. Chesterton's mistakes have shown.\n\nThe chief evils of the environment of the rich are wealth, luxury,\nidleness, and false ideals.\n\nIt is not healthy for young people to be brought up to do nothing but\nspend money and hunt for excitement. It is not good for young or old to\nhave unlimited wealth and leisure. It is not good for men, nor women,\nnor children, to be flattered and fawned upon. Flunkeyism and slavery\ndegrade and debase the master as well as the servant: the snob lord, as\nwell as the snob lackey.\n\nWe have hundreds of religions in the world; but how many teachers of\ntrue morality? True morality condemns all forms of selfishness, all acts\nthat are hurtful to our neighbours, to the commonwealth, to the race.\nIn the light of true morality, a rich landowner, or a millionaire\nmoney-lender, is a greater criminal than a burglar or a foot-pad; and a\npolitician or a journalist who utters base words is worse than a coiner\nwho utters base coin.\n\nThis being so, all the rich are bred and reared in an immoral\natmosphere.\n\nBut the atmosphere is polluted in other ways. The children of the rich\nare perverted with false ideals. They are taught to regard themselves as\nsuperior to the workers, who keep them. They are taught that it is sport\nto murder helpless and harmless birds and beasts and fishes. They are\ntaught to toady to those above, and to expect toadyism from those below\nthem. They are given tacitly to understand that it is their lordly right\nto command, and that it is the duty of the masses to obey. They are\nallowed to believe that to be born \"spacious in the possession of dirt,\"\nor free to wallow in unearned money, is honourable, and that to be poor\nand landless is a proof of inferiority.\n\nThey are puffed up with false ideas of value, and suppose that to\npossess an opulence of pride and a beggarly smattering of useless and\noften hurtful knowledge, is more creditable than to be capable of making\nhonest pots and pans, and boots and trousers; of laying level pavements,\nand cutting invaluable drains. They have their unfurnished minds\nlumbered with immoral ideas of empire, of conquest, of titles, of stars\nand garters. They are the spoilt children of Vanity Fair, and very many\nof them are the lamentable failures which their environment would lead\nus to expect.\n\nNo man is educated who has never learnt to do any kind of useful work;\nno man lives in a good environment who has not been taught to think of\nthe welfare of his fellow creatures before his own, no life is sound,\nnor sweet, nor moral, which is not based on useful service. Therefore\nthe environment of the rich is generally evil and not good.\n\nThese are not the reckless utterances of any angry demagogue. Every word\nI have written about the evils of idleness, of luxury, of arrogance, of\nvain-glory and self-love, is endorsed by the teachings of the wisest\nand the best men of all ages; every word is supported by the records\nof history, by the known facts of contemporary life; every word is in\naccord with the new and the old morality.\n\nIt is a matter of common knowledge that the environment of the rich\n\"puts forth sins like scarlet flowers in summer.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER NINE--THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE\n\nTHE religious mind loves mysteries. Conscience has always been set down\nas a mystery by religious people. It has been called \"the still small\nvoice,\" and we have been taught that it is a supernatural kind of sense\nby which man is guided in his knowledge of good and evil.\n\nNow, I claim that conscience is no more supernatural than is the sense\nof smell, and no more mysterious than the stomach.\n\nIf conscience were what religious people think it is--a kind of heavenly\nvoice whispering to us what things are right and wrong--we should expect\nto find its teachings constant. It would not chide one man, and approve\nanother, for the same act. It would not warn men that an act was wrong\nin one age, and assure them in another age that the same act was\nright. It would not have one rule of morality for the guidance of an\nEnglishman, and another rule of morality for the guidance of a Turk.\nIt would not change its moral code as the man it is supposed to guide\nchanges his beliefs through education and experience. It would not give\nsuch widely different men of the same age and nation.\n\nIf conscience were really a supernatural guide to right conduct it would\nalways and everywhere tell man what is eternally right or eternally\nwrong.\n\nBut conscience is changeable and uncertain. It is a magnetic needle that\npoints North at one time and South at another time; that points East on\none ship and West on another ship; that points all round the compass\nfor all kinds of travellers on life's ocean; that has no relation to the\neverlasting truths at all.\n\nSceptics have pointed out that \"conscience is geographical\"; that it\ngives different verdicts in different countries, on the same evidence.\n\nBut I shall show that conscience is:\n\n1. Geographical: that it is not the same in one country as in another.\n\n2. Historical: that it is not the same in one age as in another.\n\n3. Personal: that it is not the same in one person as in another.\n\n4. Changeable: it alters with its owner's mind.\n\nAnd that, therefore, conscience is not a true and certain guide to\nright, and cannot be the voice of God.\n\nFirst, as to geographical, or local, conscience. The English conscience\nlooks with horror or disgust upon polygamy, child murder, cannibalism,\nand the blood feud.\n\nThe Turkish conscience allows many wives; the Redskin conscience allows\nthe scalping of enemies; the Afghan conscience applauds the dutiful son\nwho murders the nephew of his father's enemy; the cannibal conscience\nis silent at a feast of cold missionary; the Chinese conscience goes\nblandly to the killing of girl babies; the Rand conscience sees no evil\nin the flogging of Kaffirs and Chinese; the aristocratic conscience\nis not ashamed of taking the bread from starving peasants and their\nchildren; the capitalist conscience permits the making of fortunes out\nof sweated labour.\n\nNow, cannibalism, murder, cheating, tyranny, the flogging of slaves, and\nthe torture of enemies are all immoral and evil things. They cannot be\ngood things in the East and bad things in the West. But conscience--the\nmysterious and wonderful \"still small voice\"--blames man in one part of\nthe world and praises him in another for committing those acts.\n\nConscience is _local_: it tells one tale in Johannesburg or Pekin, and\nquite a different tale in Amsterdam or Paris.\n\nAnd to find out which tale is the true one we have to use our _reason_.\n\nAs to historical conscience. What men thought good a few centuries ago\nthey now think bad.\n\nTake only a few examples. Men once saw no wrong in slavery, in trial\nby wager of battle, in witch-burning, in the torture of prisoners\nto extract evidence, in the whipping of lunatics, in the use of\nchild-labour in mines and factories, in duelling, bear-baiting,\nprize-fighting, and heavy drinking.\n\nNot very long ago men would tear out a man's tongue for \"blasphemy,\"\nwould hang a woman for stealing a turnip, would burn a bishop alive for\nheresy, would nail an author to the pillory by his ear for criticising a\nduke, would sell women and children felons into slavery; and conscience\nwould never whisper a protest.\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE\n\nNow, it was wrong to burn heretics, and pillory reformers, and work\nbabies to death in the mill and the mine in those days, or it is right\nto do the same things now.\n\nBut conscience now condemns as wrong the same acts which it once\napproved as right; it now approves as right what it once condemned as\nwrong.\n\nConscience, then, differs in different ages. Conscience tells two quite\ndifferent tales at two different times.\n\nAnd if we want to find out which tale is the true one we have to use our\n_reason_.\n\nAs to personal conscience. We all know that one man's conscience differs\nfrom another. We all know that in any English town on any day there are\nas many varieties of conscience as there are varieties of hands, and\neyes, and feet, and noses.\n\nThere are the Nonconformist conscience, the Roman Catholic conscience,\nthe Rationalist conscience, the Aristocratic conscience, the Plebeian\nconscience, the Military conscience, the Commercial conscience, the Tory\nconscience, and the Socialist conscience.\n\nOne man's conscience forbids him to swear, to eat meat, to drink wine,\nto read a newspaper on Sunday, to go to a ball or a theatre, to make a\nbet, to play at cards or football, to stay away from church.\n\nAnother man's conscience permits him all those indulgences, but compels\nhim to pay trade union wages, to speak courteously to servants and poor\npersons, to be generous to beggars, and kind to dumb animals.\n\nA very striking example of this personal difference in the ruling\nof conscience is afforded by the quite recent contrast between the\nsentiments of Northern and Southern Americans on the question of negro\nslavery.\n\nAnother equally striking example is the difference to-day between the\nrulings of the consciences of Socialists and sweaters.\n\nMy own conscience, for instance, never chides me for \"Sabbath breaking\"\nnor for \"neglect of God\"; but it would not allow me to grow rich on the\nrent of slum houses, nor on the earnings of half-starved children, nor\non the sale of prurient novels, or adulterated beer, or sized calico.\n\nNow, it is either right or wrong to do all these things. It cannot be\nright for one man to dance and wrong for another to dance; it cannot be\nright for one man to bet, and wrong for another man to bet; it cannot be\nright for one man to draw rents for slum houses, and wrong for another\nman to draw rents for slum houses.\n\nBut conscience tells some men that it is right to do these things, and\ntells other men it is wrong to do the same things.\n\nConscience is not the same thing to one man that it is to another man.\nIt praises Brown and blames Jones for doing the same thing. It tells\ndifferent tales to different men.\n\nAn when we want to know which is the _true_ tale we have to use our\n_reason_.\n\nAs to changeable conscience. We all know very well that conscience does\nnot keep to one rule of right and wrong even with one man; but that it\nchanges its rule whenever the man changes his belief through teaching or\nexperience.\n\nI need not give many examples of these changes. Every reader can supply\nthem for himself. When I was a boy my conscience pained me severely if\nI stayed away from Sunday school or neglected to say my prayers. But it\ndoes not chide me now for not going to church, nor for not reading the\nBible, nor for not praying. Why has conscience thus changed its tone\nwith me? Simply because I have changed my opinions.\n\nBut those things could not have been wrong then if they are right now.\nConscience has changed. Conscience changes as the mind changes. It tells\none tale in our youth, and another in our prime, and perhaps yet another\nin our decay.\n\nAnd if we want to know which tale is the _true_ tale we must use our\n_reason_.\n\nAnd now we find that conscience is different in different nations,\nin different cities, in different classes, in different persons, in\ndifferent ages, in different circumstances, in different moods.\n\nAnd, when we come to think about it, we find that conscience never tells\nus anything we do not know. It is a voice which always tells us what we\ndo know: what we believe. It does not teach us what acts are right and\nwhat acts are wrong. It _reminds_ of what we have been _taught_ about\nright or wrong.\n\nIt is not a divine voice, for it often leads us wrong. It is not a\ndivine voice, for it is no wiser and no better than ourselves.\n\nWhat is it? What is conscience? Conscience is chiefly _habit_: it\nis chiefly _memory_: but it is partly, perhaps, inherited instinct.\nConscience is habit. We all know that it is easier to do a thing which\nwe have often done before than to do a thing we have never done before.\n\nWe all know that what we call practice improves an organ or power of our\nbody or our mind.\n\nAs the proverbs put it: \"Use is second nature.\" \"Practice makes\nperfect.\"\n\nMost of us know that an organ develops with use and decays with disuse.\n\nIf you wish to develop your muscles you must use them. If you wish to\nimprove your memory or to sharpen your wits you must use them.\n\nWhen a man is first taught to use a rifle he finds to his surprise that\nhe cannot pull the trigger just exactly when he wants it. But in time\nhe does that quite without thought or effort. The muscles of his finger\nhave been \"educated\" to act with his eye.\n\nSome men, when they first begin to shoot, shrink from the rifle. They\nfear the recoil or the sudden explosion, and the muscles of their\nshoulder flinch. If a man gives way to that habit it grows upon him, and\nhe can never shoot straight. The muscles have learnt to flinch; and they\nflinch.\n\nOne man falls into the habit of swearing. The habit grows upon him. The\nwords come ever more readily to his tongue, and he swears more and more.\n\nNow, let us suppose a boy has been taught that it is wrong to swear.\nIn his memory lies the lesson. It has been repeated until it has grown\nstrong. When he hears swearing it shocks him. But the more he hears it\nthe less it shocks him. The words grow more familiar to his ear, just as\nthe sound of a waterfall or of machinery grows familiar to the ear.\n\nThen suppose he swears. That is a very unusual act for him. And his old\nlesson that to swear is wrong is still firm and ready. It is not his\nhabit to swear: it is his habit to shrink from swearing.\n\nSo if he swears, his memory, which has been educated to resent all\nswearing, brings up at once to his notice the lessons of years.\n\nThe same kind of thing is seen on the cricket field. A batsman is\nplaying steadily. He has been trained to play cautiously against good\nbowling. But he has a favourite stroke. The bowler knows it He sends a\nball very aptly called a \"ticer\" to entice the batsman to hit, in\nthe hopes of a catch. The desire to make that pet cut or off-drive is\nstrong; but the \"habit\" of caution is stronger; he lets the ball go by.\nOr the habit is not as strong as the desire, and he cuts the ball; and,\neven as he watches it flash safely through the field for the boundary,\nhe feels that he ran a foolish risk, and must not repeat it.\n\nWhat is it tells him he did wrong? It is his memory: his memory, which\nhas been educated to check his rashness. In fact, it is his cricketer's\nconscience that warns him.\n\nSo with the youth who swears. No sooner has the word passed his lips\nthan his educated memory, which has been trained to check swearing,\nbrings up the lesson, and confronts him with it.\n\nBut let him swear again and again, and in time the moral lessons in his\nmemory will be overlaid by the familiar sound of curses; the habit of\nflinching from an oath will grow weak, and the habit of using oaths will\ngrow strong.\n\nIt is really what happens with the rifleman who gives way to the recoil\nand forms a habit of flinching, or with the cricketer who allows his\ndesire to score to overcome his habit of caution. The old habit fades\nfrom disuse; the new habit grows strong from use. The rifleman becomes\na hopelessly bad shot; the batsman degenerates into a slogger: the young\nman swears every time he speaks, and his conscience loses all power to\ncheck him.\n\nTake the case of the letter \"h.\" The young Lochinvar who comes out of\nthe West sounds his aitches properly and easily--just as properly and\nas easily as a fencer makes his parries, as a pianist strikes the right\nnotes, as C. B. Fry plays a straight bat. It is a matter of teaching and\nof use, and has become a habit. From his earliest efforts at speech he\nhas heard the \"h\" sounded, has been checked if he failed to sound it,\nhas corrected himself if he made a slip.\n\nBut the young Lochinvar who comes out of the East drops his aspirates\nall over the place without a blush or a pang. He has never been taught\nto sound the \"h.\" He has not practised it. He has formed the habit of\nnot sounding it, and it would take him years of painful effort to change\nthe habit.\n\nNow what happens in the case of a letter \"h\" is what happens in the case\nof the rifle, of the ticing ball, of the swearing. One man's memory is\neducated to remind him not to swear, not to slog, not to flinch, not to\ndrop the \"h.\" The other man's memory is not so trained.\n\nAnd this trained memory we call conscience. It is purely habit: and it\nis wholly mechanical.\n\nThere is a good story of a gang of moonlighters who had shot a landlord,\nand were afterwards sitting down to supper. One man was just raising\na piece of meat to his lips when the clock struck twelve. Instantly he\ndropped the meat. \"Be jabers!\" he said, \"'tis Friday!\"\n\nThat was the _habit_ of abstaining from meat on a Friday. It had been\ndrilled into his memory, and it acted mechanically.\n\nConscience, then, is largely a matter of habit: it depends a great deal\non what we are taught. But it is not wholly a matter of habit, nor does\nit depend wholly on our teaching.\n\nWe all know that two brothers, born of the same parents, brought up\nin the same home, educated at the same school, taught the same moral\nlessons, may be quite different in the matter of conscience. One will\nshrink from giving pain, the other will be cruel; one will be quite\ntruthful, the other will tell lies.\n\nAnd so to go back to our rifleman and our cricketer. Every novice does\nnot flinch from the recoil, every batsman is not prudent. No. Because\nmen are different by _nature_.\n\nSome boys are easy to train; some are not. Some are naturally obedient;\nsome are not. Some are naturally cruel; some are naturally merciful.\n\nThe conscience of a boy depends upon what he is by nature and what he is\ntaught.\n\nIf the emotion of anger is naturally strong in a boy it will need a\nbetter-drilled memory to check his anger than if the emotion of anger\nwere weak.\n\nI do not mean it will need more teaching to curb his \"will,\" but it\nwill need more teaching to build up his conviction that anger is wrong,\nbecause the motion resists the teaching.\n\nBut in the case of a boy gentle and merciful by nature it needs no\nteaching to prevent him from torturing frogs, and very little to make\nhim know that to torture frogs is wrong.\n\nIt is a common mistake in morals to say that a man is to blame for an\nact because he \"knew it was wrong.\" He may have been told that it was\nwrong. But until he _feels_ that it is wrong, and _believes_ that it\nis wrong, it is not true to say that he knows it _is_ wrong; for he\nmay only know that some other person says it is wrong, which is a very\ndifferent thing.\n\nFor instance, it might be said in this way that I am wicked for\nlistening to Beethoven on the Sabbath, \"because I know that it is\nwrong.\" But I do not know that is wrong. I do not believe that it is\nwrong. I only know that some people say it is wrong.\n\nSo I claim that conscience is what a man's nature and teaching make it:\nthat it is a habit of memory, and no more mysterious than the habit of\nsmoking, or dropping the aspirate, or eating peas with a knife.\n\nLet us now look at some of the scientific evidence.\n\n\nSCIENCE AND CONSCIENCE\n\nI will quote first from Darwin, \"Descent of Man,\" Chapter 4:\n\nThe following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable, namely,\nthat any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts,\nthe parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably\nacquire a moral sense or conscience as soon as its intellectual\npowers had become as well, or nearly as well, developed as in man....\n_Secondly_, as soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed,\nimages of all past actions and motives would be incessantly\npassing through the brain of each individual; and that feeling of\ndissatisfaction, or even misery, which invariably results, as we shall\nhereafter see, from any unsatisfied instinct would arise as often as it\nwas perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct,\nhad yielded to some other instinct, at the time stronger, but neither\nenduring in its nature nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression.\n\nNow let us see what Darwin means. The social instincts include human\nsympathy and the desire for the company of our fellows; love of\napprobation, which is the desire to be loved, or to be thought well of,\nby our fellows; and gratitude, which is the love we pay back for the\nlove which is given us:\n\nThese social instincts are sometimes so strong, even in animals, as to\novercome the powerful maternal instinct; so that migratory birds, as\nDarwin shows, and as we all know who have read our Gilbert White, will\ngo with the flock and leave their new broods defenceless and unprovided\nfor.\n\nThe social instincts, then, are very strong, and they lead us to conform\nto social rule or sentiment.\n\nBut now Darwin tells us that in the case of man \"images of all past\nactions and motives would be incessantly passing through the brain.\"\nThese \"images\" are mental pictures, and they are printed on those brain\ncells which make what we call \"memory.\" Now, Darwin tells us that these\nmemory pictures would cause us pain as often as they reminded us that we\nhad broken the social rule or outraged the social sentiment in order to\nindulge some instinct of a selfish kind.\n\nAnd Darwin makes it clear to us that such a selfish desire may be strong\nbefore it is gratified, and may yet leave an impression of pleasure\nafter it is gratified which is weak indeed in presence of the\ndeep-rooted social memories.\n\nLet us take a few examples. The desire for a pleasure may be strong\nenough to drive us to enjoy it, and yet the pleasure may seem to us not\nworth the cost or trouble after the desire has been sated. When we are\nhungry the desire for food is intense.\n\nAfter we have eaten we are no longer hungry. But we grow hungry again,\nand then the desire for food is as intense as ever.\n\nDick Swiveller goes to a bachelor party, and the desire for the\nconvivial glass is strong within him. He drinks too much, and the next\nmorning calls himself a fool for drinking. He is ashamed of his excess,\nand he has the headache, and the temptation is now absent. But when he\nis well again, and at another party, the old desire comes back with the\nold power. So Dick once more indulges too freely in \"the rosy,\" and has\nanother sick head in consequence. And then the social instincts rise\nup and reproach him, and the sated appetite, being weak, appears to him\ncontemptible.\n\nThe social instinct is constant: the selfish desire is intermittent. The\npassion is like a tide which leaps the moral wall and then falls back\nto low water. The wall remains: it may be sullied or shaken, but it is\nstill a moral wall, and only a long succession of such tides can break\nit down. When passion has broken down the moral wall the man is at the\nmercy of his passions. They flood the dwelling of his soul again and\nagain until he is a ruin.\n\nThis, I think, explains Darwin's idea of the struggle between the social\nand selfish instincts.\n\nIn \"Adam Bede\" George Eliot blames the seducer of Hettie Sorrel for\ndoing a terrible wrong for the sake of a brief selfish indulgence. But\nthat charge is unfair. It implies that the deed was planned and done in\ncold blood. But the fact was that both Hettie and Arthur were carried\naway by a rush of passion. The great tide of desire, a desire made\nterribly strong by Nature, had overleapt the walls of morality and\nprudence.\n\nAnger has been called a brief madness. The same kind of thing might\nbe said of all the passions. It is as easy to be virtuous after the\ntemptation as to be wise after the event We can all be brave in the\nabsence of the enemy. The result of a struggle between the sea and a\nwall depends upon the force of the tide and the strength of the wall.\nIt behoves us all to see that moral walls are builded strong and kept in\ngood repair.\n\nLet us go back to the action of the memory in the making of morals.\nDr. C. W. Saleeby, who is doing good work in this field, gives us clear\nlight in his book, \"The Cycle of Life.\" He says:\n\nMemory means a change impressed more or less deeply on the grey surface\nof the brain.\n\nA _change_. Those \"images\" which Darwin tells us are continually passing\nthrough the mind have actually made a _change_ in the brain. That is to\nsay, they have made a change in the _mind_: they have made a change in\nthe personality.\n\nAfter showing how a singer learns to produce a note properly by practice\nuntil he is almost incapable of producing it improperly, and until its\nproper production has become mechanical, Dr. Saleeby says:\n\nThe effect of practice, as in any other art, mechanical, mental, or\nboth, has been so to alter the constitution of the nerve cells as to\nproduce a new mode of action.\n\nThe nerve cells have been _re-arranged_, and the _habit_ of the person\nhas been _altered_. He is no longer quite the same person. He now acts\nand thinks differently.\n\nNow, these changes in the arrangement of the brain cells and fibres may\nbe looked upon as the building up of the moral wall. And the desires and\naversions are like the rising and falling tide.\n\nAnd the tide of our desires is a tide of nature. Because our desires and\naversions seem to work by reflex action. What is reflex action?\n\nReflex action, as I use the term here, is the mechanical action of the\nnerves. We do not grow hungry, or thirsty, or angry, or compassionate on\npurpose: we do not fall in love on purpose. The stomach, working,\nlike the heart and lungs, by reflex action, without our knowledge or\ndirection, uses up the food, and our nerves demand more. The desire for\nfood, for love, for revenge, is due to reflex action. The desire makes\nitself felt first without our asking, and we have to refuse or to grant\nits request after it is made.\n\nWe do not say: \"Behold, there is a pretty face: I will be attracted by\nit.\" We cannot _help_ being attracted by the face that attracts us, any\nmore than we can help being hungry. The face attracts us, more or less,\nand we decide to seek out its owner, according to the strength of the\nattraction and of the reason for resisting the attraction. We see\na diamond. We do not say: \"There is a diamond. I will not think it\nbeautiful.\" We _cannot_ think it anything but beautiful; but whether or\nnot we shall buy it or steal it depends upon the strength of our desire\nand the strength of the reasons against gratifying that desire.\n\nNow, let us see how these conflicting ideas act. A man sees a beautiful\nwoman, and desires to see more of her. But he fears if he sees much of\nher he will fall in love with her. And he is engaged to marry another\nwoman. What goes on in his mind? Memory reminds him that he is engaged,\nand that it would be \"wrong\" to follow his desire. And every time the\ntemptation draws him to follow his desire he calls up the \"image\" of the\nother woman, and he calls up the images of old lessons, of old thoughts,\nof old opinions read and heard by him. And the stronger the temptation\ngrows the more earnestly does he invoke these images. Now, what does\nall this show? It shows the contest between the reflex action of desire,\nbacked by the memories of love's pleasures, on the one part; and, on the\nother part, of the moral feelings of memories of what he has learnt or\nthought to be right and wrong. It is then a battle between memory and\ndesire.\n\nA man is never tempted by a woman who does not attract him.\n\nHe never steals a thing he does not want. He does not drink a liquor he\ndoes not like. The desire must be there before his will is put to the\ntest. And the desire is independent of his will.\n\nA child has no morals. It has only desires. If it likes sugar it will\ntake sugar. If it is angry it will strike. It is only when it is told\nthat to steal sugar or strike its nurse is \"naughty\" that it begins to\nhave a moral sense. And its moral sense consists entirely of what it\n_learns_--that is to say, its moral sense is _memory_. And its memory\nis a _change_ in the arrangement of the cells of the grey matter of the\nbrain. And these changes make the brain into a different kind of brain:\nmake the child into a different kind of child.\n\nNow, the child does not teach _itself_ these moral lessons. It does not\nknow them. It has to be taught by those who do know. And its moral sense\ndepends upon what it is taught. And its conscience depends upon what it\nis taught.\n\nAnd, that being so, is it not quite evident that the conscience is _not_\nthe voice of God; that the conscience is not an innate knowledge of\nright and wrong born with the child; but it is nothing more nor less\nthan the action of the memory?\n\nThe whole of this subject is ably and exhaustively treated by Luys in\n\"The Brain and Its Functions,\" but I have not room here to go into it\nfully. Briefly put, the scientific explanation may be expressed thus:\nThe brain cells have power to receive and to _repeat_ impressions. When\na new sensory impulse arises it awakens these impressions by means of\nthe fibres of association. It is as though the brain were a phonographic\n\"record.\" Upon this \"record\" there is printed, let us say, some moral\nlesson, as \"Look not upon the wine when it is red in the cup.\" On the\nword \"wine\" being heard the association fibre which links the idea of\nwine to the moral idea of temperance sets the \"record\" in motion, and\nmemory recalls the caution, \"Look not upon the wine in the cup.\" It is\nas if a \"record\" on which is printed a song by Dan Leno were joined\nup with a battery which, upon hearing the word \"Leno,\" would start the\n\"record\" to repeat the song.\n\nI hope I have made that clear. I will now conclude by quoting from Dr.\nSaleeby a passage dealing with the important subject of \"association.\" I\ntake it from \"The Cycle of Life\":\n\nNerve cells are significantly incapable of division and reproduction....\nAll the experience of living merely modifies, the state of the cells\nalready present. The modification is memory.\n\nBut though a nerve-cell cannot divide, it can send forth new processes,\nor nerve-fibres from itself--what we call a nerve being simply a\ncollection of processes from a nerve-cell. Throughout the brain and\nspinal cord we find great numbers of nerve processes which simply\nrun from one set of nerve-cells to another, instead of running to\na sense-organ, or a muscle, or a gland. Such fibres are called\n_association_ fibres, their business being to associate different sets\nof nerve-cells.\n\nIt is conceivable that an exceptional development of such fibres may\naccount for the possession of a good memory, or, at any rate, for\nthe power easily to learn such co-ordinations as are implied in\nviolin-playing, billiards, cricket, or baseball. Granting the power\nof nerve-cells, even when adult, to form new processes, it might be\nsupposed that the exercise of this power accounts for the acquirement of\ncertain habits of thought or action.\n\nNow, whether or not nerve-cells have power to form new association\nfibres late in life, it is important to notice that the association\nfibres which exist at birth or form in childhood are the means by which\none idea suggests another; and the means by which, as I said just now,\nupon the utterance of the word \"wine\" all we have remembered to have\nread or heard about wine is repeated by the memory \"record.\"\n\nAnd, just as a phonograph record can only repeat the song or speech that\nis printed upon it, so the memory can only repeat what it contains, and\nit contains nothing that has not been printed there through the medium\nof the senses.\n\nThat is why the word \"marriage\" carries with it no moral revulsion\nagainst polygamy in the mind of a Turk. The brain of a Turk has no\n\"record\" on its grey matter of any moral teaching against polygamy. And\nthe \"still small voice\" does not make good the absence of the \"record,\"\nand tell him that polygamy is wrong. This being so, what becomes of the\ntheory that conscience is a mysterious agent of God implanted in the\nmind of man to guide him to do right and to shun wrong?\n\nA cannibal chief was told by a missionary that it was wicked to have two\nwives. He went away and _ate_ one wife. The missionary had printed on\nhis brain \"record\" the lesson that to have two wives was wrong; but\nthere was no \"record\" there to tell him he must not kill one wife and\neat her.\n\nWhere was the \"still small voice,\" the \"divine guide to right conduct\"?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER TEN--FREE WILL\n\nTHE free will delusion has been a stumbling block in the way of human\nthought for thousands of years. Let us try whether common sense and\ncommon knowledge cannot remove it.\n\nFree will is a subject of great importance to us in this case; and it is\none we must come to with our eyes wide open and our wits wide awake; not\nbecause it is very difficult, but because it has been tied and twisted\ninto a tangle of Gordian knots by twenty centuries full of wordy\nbut unsuccessful philosophers, The free will party claim that man is\nresponsible for his acts, because his will is free to choose between\nright and wrong.\n\nWe reply that the will is not free; and that if it were free man could\nnot know right from wrong until he was taught.\n\nAs to the knowledge of good and evil the free will party will claim\nthat conscience is an unerring guide. But I have already proved that\nconscience does not and cannot tell us what is right and what is wrong:\nit only reminds us of the lessons we have learnt as to right and wrong.\n\nThe \"still small voice\" is not the voice of God: it is the voice of\nheredity and environment.\n\nAnd now to the freedom of the will.\n\nWhen a man says his will is free, he means that it is free of all\ncontrol or interference: that it can over-rule heredity and environment.\n\nWe reply that the will is ruled by heredity and environment.\n\nThe cause of all the confusion on this subject may be shown in a few\nwords.\n\nWhen the free will party say that man has a free will, they mean that he\nis free to act as he chooses to act.\n\nThere is no need to deny that. _But what causes him to choose?_\n\nThat is the pivot upon which the whole discussion turns.\n\nThe free will party seem to think of the will as something independent\nof the man, as something outside him. They seem to think that the will\ndecides without the control of the man's reason.\n\nIf that were so, it would not prove the man responsible. \"The will\"\nwould be responsible, and not the man. It would be as foolish to blame a\nman for the act of a \"free\" will, as to blame a horse for the action of\nits rider.\n\nBut I am going to prove to my readers, by appeals to their common sense\nand common knowledge, that the will is not free; and that it is ruled by\nheredity and environment.\n\nTo begin with, the average man will be against me. He knows that he\nchooses between two courses every hour, and often every minute, and he\nthinks his choice is free. But that is a delusion: his choice is not\nfree. He can choose, and does choose. But he can only choose as his\nheredity and his environment cause him to choose. He never did choose\nand never will choose except as his heredity and his environment--his\ntemperament and his training--cause him to choose. And his heredity and\nhis environment have fixed his choice before he makes it.\n\nThe average man says \"I know that I can act as I wish to act.\"\n\nBut what causes him to wish?\n\nThe free will party say, \"We know that a man can and does choose between\ntwo acts.\" But what settles the choice?\n\nThere is a cause for every wish, a cause for every choice; and\nevery cause of every wish and choice arises from heredity, or from\nenvironment.\n\nFor a man acts always from temperament, which is heredity, or from\ntraining, which is environment.\n\nAnd in cases where a man hesitates in his choice between two acts,\nthe hesitation is due to a conflict between his temperament and his\ntraining, or, as some would express it, \"between his desire and his\nconscience.\"\n\nA man is practising at a target with a gun, when a rabbit crosses his\nline of fire. The man has his eye and his sights on the rabbit, and his\nfinger on the trigger. The man's will is free. If he press the trigger\nthe rabbit will be killed.\n\nNow, how does the man decide whether or not he shall fire? He decides by\nfeeling, and by reason.\n\nHe would like to fire, just to make sure that he could hit the mark. He\nwould like to fire, because he would like to have the rabbit for supper.\nHe would like to fire, because there is in him the old, old hunting\ninstinct, to kill.\n\nBut the rabbit does not belong to him. He is not sure that he will not\nget into trouble if he kills it. Perhaps--if he is a very uncommon kind\nof man--he feels that it would be cruel and cowardly to shoot a helpless\nrabbit.\n\nWell. The man's will is free. He can fire if he likes: he can let the\nrabbit go if he likes. How will he decide? On what does his decision\ndepend?\n\nHis decision depends upon the relative strength of his desire to kill\nthe rabbit, and of his scruples about cruelty, and the law. Not only\nthat, but, if we knew the man fairly well, we could guess how his free\nwill would act before it acted. The average spoiling Briton would kill\nthe rabbit. But we know that there are men who would on no account shoot\nany harmless wild creature.\n\nBroadly put, we may say that the sportsman would will to fire, and that\nthe humanitarian would not will to fire.\n\nNow, as both their wills are free, it must be something outside the\nwills that makes the difference.\n\nWell. The sportsman will kill, because he is a sportsman: the\nhumanitarian will not kill, because he is a humanitarian.\n\nAnd what makes one man a sportsman and another a humanitarian? Heredity\nand environment: temperament and training.\n\nOne man is merciful, another cruel, by nature; or one is thoughtful and\nthe other thoughtless, by nature. That is a difference of heredity.\n\nOne may have been taught all his life that to kill wild things is\n\"sport\"; the other may have been taught that it is inhuman and wrong:\nthat is a difference of environment.\n\nNow, the man by nature cruel or thoughtless, who has been trained to\nthink of killing animals as sport, becomes what we call a sportsman,\nbecause heredity and environment have made him a sportsman.\n\nThe other man's heredity and environment have made him a humanitarian.\n\nThe sportsman kills the rabbit, because he is a sportsman, and he is a\nsportsman because heredity and environment have made him one.\n\nThat is to say the \"free will\" is really controlled by heredity and\nenvironment.\n\nAllow me to give a case in point. A man who had never done any fishing\nwas taken out by a fisherman. He liked the sport, and for some months\nfollowed it eagerly. But one day an accident brought home to his mind\nthe cruelty of catching fish with a hook, and he instantly laid down his\nrod, and never fished again.\n\nBefore the change he was always eager to go fishing if invited: after\nthe change he could not be persuaded to touch a line. His will was free\nall the while. How was it that his will to fish changed to his will not\nto fish? It was the result of environment. He had learnt that fishing\nwas cruel. This knowledge controlled his will.\n\nBut, it may be asked, how do you account for a man doing the thing he\ndoes not wish to do?\n\nNo man ever did a thing he did not wish to do. When there are two wishes\nthe stronger rules.\n\nLet us suppose a case. A young woman gets two letters by the same post;\none is an invitation to go with her lover to a concert, the other is a\nrequest that she will visit a sick child in the slums. The girl is very\nfond of music, and is rather afraid of the slums. She wishes to go to\nthe concert, and to be with her lover; she dreads the foul street and\nthe dirty home, and shrinks from the risk of measles or fever. But she\ngoes to the sick child, and she foregoes the concert. Why?\n\nBecause her sense of duty is stronger than her self-love.\n\nNow, her sense of duty is partly due to her nature--that is, to her\nheredity--but it is chiefly due to environment. Like all of us, this\ngirl was born without any kind of knowledge, and with only the rudiments\nof a conscience. But she has been well taught, and the teaching is part\nof her environment.\n\nWe may say that the girl is free to act as she chooses, but she _does_\nact as she has been _taught_ that she _ought_ to act. This teaching,\nwhich is part of her environment, controls her will.\n\nWe may say that a man is free to act as he chooses. He is free to act\nas _he_ chooses, but _he_ will choose as heredity and environment cause\n_him_ to choose. For heredity and environment have made him that which\nhe is.\n\nA man is said to be free to decide between two courses. But really he is\nonly free to decide in accordance with his temperament and training.\n\nBrown is a Member of Parliament. He is given to understand that by\nsuppressing his principles he may get a seat in the next Cabinet.\n\nBrown is very anxious to get into the Cabinet. He is ambitious. His wife\nis ambitious. He wants to make a name; he wants to please his wife. But\nhe has been taught that to sacrifice one's principles for a bribe is\ndisgraceful.\n\nNow, his ambition is part of his heredity; the things he has been taught\nare part of his environment.\n\nThe conflict in his mind is a conflict between the old Adam and the\nnew; between the older egotism and the newer altruism. It is a\nconflict between good heredity and bad heredity; between heredity and\nenvironment; and the victory will be to the stronger.\n\nIf Brown is very ambitious, and not very conscientious, he will take the\nbribe. If his conscience is stronger than his ambition, he will refuse\nit. But to say that he is free to choose is a misuse of terms: he is\nonly free to decide as the stronger of the two motives compels him to\ndecide. And the motives arise from heredity and environment.\n\nMacbeth was ambitious; but he had a conscience. He wanted Duncan's\ncrown; but he shrank from treason and ingratitude. Ambition pulled him\none way, honour pulled him the other way. The opposing forces were so\nevenly balanced that he seemed unable to decide. Was Macbeth free to\nchoose? To what extent was he free? He was so free that he could arrive\nat no decision, and it was the influence of his wife that turned the\nscale to crime.\n\nWas Lady Macbeth free to choose? She did not hesitate. Because her\nambition was so much stronger than her conscience that she never was in\ndoubt. She chose as her over-powering ambition compelled her to choose.\n\nAnd most of us in our decisions resemble either Macbeth or his wife.\nEither our nature is so much stronger than our training, or our training\nis so much stronger than our nature, that we decide for good or evil\nas promptly as a stream decides to run down hill; or our nature and our\ntraining are so nearly balanced that we can hardly decide at all.\n\nIn Macbeth's case the contest is quite clear and easy to follow. He was\nambitious, and his environment had taught him to regard the crown as a\nglorious and desirable possession. But environment had also taught him\nthat murder, and treason, and ingratitude were wicked and disgraceful.\n\nHad he never been taught these lessons, or had he been taught that\ngratitude was folly, that honour was weakness, and murder excusable\nwhen it led to power, he would not have hesitated at all. It was his\nenvironment that hampered his will.\n\nWe may say that Wellington was free to take a bribe. But his heredity\nand environment had only left him free to refuse one. Everyone who knew\nthe Iron Duke knew how his free will would act if a bribe were offered\nhim.\n\nWe may say that Nelson was free to run away from an enemy. But we know\nthat Nelson's nature and training had left him free only to run after an\nenemy. All the world knew before the event how Nelson's free will would\nact when a hostile fleet hove into view. Heredity and environment had\nsettled the action of Nelson's free will in that matter before the\noccasion to act arose.\n\nWe may say that Nelson's will was free in the case of Lady Hamilton. But\nit seems only to have been free to do as Lady Hamilton wished.\n\nWhen Nelson met an enemy's fleet, he made haste to give them battle;\nwhen he met Lady Hamilton he struck his flag. Some other man might have\nbeen free to avoid a battle; some other man might have been free to\nresist the fascinations of a friend's wife. Horatio Nelson was only free\nto act as _his_ nature and _his_ training compelled _him_ to act. To\nNelson honour was dearer than life; but Lady Hamilton was dearer than\nhonour.\n\nNelson's action in Lady Hamilton's case was largely due to the influence\nof environment. To hesitate in war was universally regarded as shameful.\nBut, in Nelson's environment, a love intrigue was condoned as an amiable\nhuman weakness. Hence the failure of Nelson's will and conscience to\nresist the blandishments of the handsome Emma.\n\nWe may say that Jack Sheppard and Cardinal Manning were free to\nsteal, or to refrain from stealing. But we know that the heredity and\nenvironment of the thief had made robbery, for him, a proof of prowess,\nand a question of the value of the spoil; and we know that the Cardinal\nwould not have stolen the Crown jewels if he could; that he did not want\nthem, and would not have taken them if he had wanted them.\n\nWe say that a drunkard and a lifelong abstainer are free to drink or to\nrefuse a glass of whisky. But we know that in both cases the action of\nthe free will is a foregone conclusion.\n\nIn all cases the action of the will depends upon the relative strength\nof two or more motives. The stronger motive decides the will; just as\nthe heavier weight decides the balance of a pair of scales.\n\nIn Macbeth's case the balance seemed almost even: Lady Macbeth's\npersuasion brought down the scale on the wrong side.\n\nIf the will were free, it would be independent of the temperament and\ntraining, and so would act as freely in one case as in another. So that\nit would be as easy for the drunkard as for the lifelong abstainer to\nrefuse to drink; as easy for the thief as for the Cardinal to be honest;\nas easy for Macbeth as for Lady Macbeth to seal the fate of Duncan.\n\nBut we all know that it is harder for one man than for another to be\nsober, or honest, or virtuous; and we all know that the sobriety, or\nhonesty, or virtue of any man depends upon his temperament and training;\nthat is to say, upon his heredity and his environment.\n\nHow, then, can we believe that free will is outside and superior to\nheredity and environment?\n\nIn the case of the slum children rescued by Dr. Baraado and others we\nknow that had they been left in the slums their wills would have willed\nevil, and we know that when taken out of the slums their wills willed\ngood.\n\nThere was no change in the freedom of the will; the will that is free in\nWhitechapel is free in Manitoba. The difference was the environment. In\nCanada as in London the environment controlled the will.\n\n\"What! Cannot a man be honest if he choose?\" Yes, if he choose. But that\nis only another way of saying that he can be honest if his nature and\nhis training lead him to choose honesty.\n\n\"What! Cannot I please myself whether I drink or refrain from drinking?\"\nYes. But that is only to say you will not drink because it pleases _you_\nto be sober. But it pleases another man to drink, because his desire for\ndrink is strong, or because his self-respect is weak.\n\nAnd you decide as you decide, and he decides as he decides, because you\nare _you_, and he is _he_; and heredity and environment made you both\nthat which you are.\n\nAnd the sober man may fall upon evil days, and may lose his\nself-respect, or find the burden of his trouble greater than he can\nbear, and may fly to drink for comfort, or oblivion, and may become a\ndrunkard. Has it not been often so?\n\nAnd the drunkard may, by some shock, or some disaster, or some passion,\nor some persuasion, regain his self-respect, and may renounce drink, and\nlead a sober and useful life. Has it not been often so?\n\nAnd in both cases the freedom of the will is untouched: it is the change\nin the environment that lifts the fallen up, and beats the upright down.\n\nWe might say that a woman's will is free, and that she could, if she\nwished, jump off a bridge and drown herself. But she cannot _wish_. She\nis happy, and loves life, and dreads the cold and crawling river. And\nyet, by some cruel turn of fortune's wheel, she may become destitute\nand miserable; so miserable that she hates life and longs for death, and\n_then_ she can jump into the dreadful river and die.\n\nHer will was free at one time as at another. It is the environment that\nhas wrought the change. Once she could not wish to die: now she cannot\nwish to live.\n\nThe apostles of free will believe that all men's wills are free.\n\nBut a man can only will that which he is able to will. And one man is\nable to will that which another man is unable to will. To deny this is\nto deny the commonest and most obvious facts of life.\n\nThe will is as free in one nation and in one class as in another. Who\nwould more willingly return a blow, an Irish soldier, or an English\nQuaker? Who would be readier to stab a rival, an English curate, or a\nSpanish smuggler? The difference does not concern the freedom of the\nwill: it is a difference of heredity and environment.\n\nThe wills of a priest and a sailor are free--free to make love in\nevery port, and to swear in every breeze. The difference is one of\nenvironment.\n\nThe free will party look upon a criminal as a bad man, who could be good\nif he wished: _but he cannot wish_.\n\nThe free will party say that if Smith wills to drink he is bad. But we\nsay that Smith drinks, and to drink is bad; but Smith drinks because he\nis Smith.\n\nThe free will party say, \"then he was born bad.\" But we say \"no: he was\nborn Smith.\"\n\nWe all know that we can foretell the action of certain men in certain\ncases, because we know the men.\n\nWe know that under the same conditions Jack Sheppard would steal and\nCardinal Manning would not steal. We know that under the same conditions\nthe sailor would flirt with the waitress, and the priest would not; that\nthe drunkard would get drunk, and the abstainer would remain sober. We\nknow that Wellington would refuse a bribe, that Nelson would not run\naway, that Buonaparte would grasp at power, that Abraham Lincoln would\nbe loyal to his country, that Torquemada would not spare a heretic. Why?\nIf the will is free, how can we be sure, before a test arises, how the\nwill must act?\n\nSimply because we know that heredity and environment have so formed and\nmoulded men and women that under certain circumstances the action of\ntheir wills is certain.\n\nHeredity and environment having made a man a thief, he will steal.\nHeredity and environment having made a man honest, he will not steal.\n\nThat is to say, heredity and environment have decided the action of the\nwill, before the time has come for the will to act.\n\nThis being so--and we all know that it is so--what becomes of the\nsovereignty of the will?\n\nLet any man that believes that he can \"do as he likes\" ask himself\n_why_ he _likes_, and he will see the error of the theory of free will,\nand will understand why the will is the servant and not the master of\nthe man: for the man is the product of heredity and environment, and\nthese control the will.\n\nAs we want to get this subject as clear as we can, let us take one or\ntwo familiar examples of the action of the will.\n\nJones and Robinson meet and have a glass of whisky. Jones asks Robinson\nto have another. Robinson says, \"no thank you, one is enough.\" Jones\nsays, \"all right: have another cigarette.\" Robinson takes the cigarette.\nNow, here we have a case where a man refuses a second drink, but takes\na second smoke. Is it because he would like another cigarette, but would\nnot like another glass of whisky? No. It is because he knows that it is\n_safer_ not to take another glass of whisky.\n\nHow does he know that whisky is dangerous? He has learnt it--from his\nenvironment.\n\n\"But he _could_ have taken another glass if he wished.\"\n\nBut he could not wish to take another, because there was something he\nwished more strongly--to be safe.\n\nAnd why did he want to be safe? Because he had learnt--from his\nenvironment--that it was unhealthy, unprofitable, and shameful to get\ndrunk. Because he had learnt--from his environment--that it is easier to\navoid forming a bad habit than to break a bad habit when formed. Because\nhe valued the good opinion of his neighbours, and also his position and\nprospects.\n\nThese feelings and this knowledge ruled his will, and caused him to\nrefuse the second glass.\n\nBut there was no sense of danger, no well-learned lesson of risk to\ncheck his will to smoke another cigarette. Heredity and environment did\nnot warn him against that. So, to please his friend, and himself, he\naccepted.\n\nNow suppose Smith asks Williams to have another glass. Williams takes\nit, takes several, finally goes home--as he often goes home. Why?\n\nLargely because drinking is a habit with him. And not only does the mind\ninstinctively repeat an action, but, in the case of drink, a physical\ncraving is set up, and the brain is weakened.\n\nIt is easier to refuse the first glass than the second; easier to refuse\nthe second than the third; and it is very much harder for a man to keep\nsober who has frequently got drunk.\n\nSo, when poor Williams has to make his choice, he has habit against him,\nhe has a physical craving against him, and he has a weakened brain to\nthink with.\n\n\"But Williams could have refused the first glass.\"\n\nNo. Because in his case the desire to drink, or to please a friend,\nwas stronger than his fear of the danger. Or he may not have been so\nconscious of the danger as Robinson was. He may not have been so well\ntaught, or he may not have been so sensible, or he may not have been\nso cautious. So that his heredity and environment, his temperament and\ntraining, led him to take the drink, as surely as Robinson's heredity\nand environment led him to refuse it.\n\nAnd now, it is my turn to ask a question. If the will is \"free,\"\nif conscience is a sure guide, how is it that the free will and the\nconscience of Robinson caused him to keep sober, while the free will and\nthe conscience of Williams caused him to get drunk?\n\nRobinson's will was curbed by certain feelings which failed to curb\nthe will of Williams. Because in the case of Williams the feelings were\nstronger on the other side.\n\nIt was the nature and the training of Robinson which made him refuse the\nsecond glass, and it was the nature and the training of Williams which\nmade him drink the second glass.\n\n\nWHAT HAD FREE WILL TO DO WITH IT?\n\nWe are told that _every_ man has a free will, and a conscience.\n\nNow, if Williams had been Robinson, that is to say if his heredity and\nhis environment had been exactly like Robinson's, he would have done\nexactly as Robinson did.\n\nIt was because his heredity and environment were not the same that his\nact was not the same.\n\nBoth men had free wills. What made one do what the other refused to do?\n\nHeredity and environment. To reverse their conduct we should have to\nreverse their heredity and environment.\n\nLet us take another familiar instance. Bill Hicks is a loafer. He\n\"doesn't like work.\" He used to work, but he was out on strike for six\nmonths, and since then he has done no more work than he could help. What\nhas changed this man's free will to work into a free will to avoid work?\n\nHicks used to work. He was a steady young fellow. Why did he work? He\ndid not know. He had always worked. He went to work just as he ate his\ndinner, or washed his hands. But he did not think much. He lived chiefly\nby custom; habit. He did things because he had always done them, and\nbecause other men did them. He knew no other way.\n\nHe worked. He worked hard: for nine hours a day. He got twenty-five\nshillings a week. He paid twelve shillings for lodging and board, and\nhe spent the rest, as others spent it, on similar boots and coats, and\na better suit, and the usual amount of beer and tobacco, and the usual\nmusic hall.\n\nHe thought those things were necessary, or rather he felt that they\nwere.\n\nHe did not love his work. There was no interest in it. It was hard, it\nwas dirty, there was no credit to be got by doing it. It was just an\naffair of habit--and wages.\n\nThen he was half a year on strike. He had less food, and less beer, and\nno music hall. But he had a very great deal less work, and more liberty,\nand--no \"boss\".\n\nMen love liberty. It is a love that is bred in the race. They do not\nlove shovelling clay into a barrow, and pushing the barrow up a plank.\nThere is nothing in it that appeals to their humanity: and it is dirty,\nand laborious, and it makes a man a prisoner and a slave.\n\nHicks found that the difference between working and loafing was a\ndifference of food, clothing, and beer, on the one hand, and on the\nother hand, of unpleasant and hard labour.\n\nHe found he could do with much less beer and beef, and that liberty\nwas sweet. He did not think this out. He seldom thought: he was never\ntrained to think. But the habit of toil was broken, and the habit of\nfreedom was formed. Also he had found out that he could live without so\nmuch toil, and live more pleasantly, if more sparely.\n\nWhat had changed the free will of Hicks from a will to work to a will to\nloaf? Change of experience: change of environment.\n\nNow Hicks is as lazy, as useless, and as free as a duke.\n\nBut, someone asks, \"where was his pride; where was his sense of duty;\nwhere was his manhood?\" And it seems to me those questions ought to be\nput to the duke. But I should say that Bill Hicks' pride and sense of\nduty were just overpowered by his love of liberty, his distaste for\nsoulless toil, and his forgetfulness of the beautiful moral lesson that\na man who will not work like a horse for a pound a week is a lazy beast,\nwhilst the man who does nothing--except harm--for a hundred thousand a\nyear, is an honourable gentleman, with a hereditary seat in the House of\nPeers.\n\nIn fact Hicks had found his heredity too strong for his training. But\nwhat had free will to do with it?\n\nThe duke has a free will. Does it ever set him wheeling clay up a plank?\nNo. Why not? Because, as in the case of Hicks, heredity and environment\ncause the duke to love some other.\n\n\"But the duke has no need to work.\" That is how Hicks feels. \"But Hicks\ncould work if he liked.\" So could the duke. But neither of these men\n_can_ \"like.\" That is just what is the matter with them both.\n\nTwo boys work at a hard and disagreeable trade. One leaves it, finds\nother work, \"gets on,\" is praised for getting on. The other stays at the\ntrade all his life, works hard all his life, is poor all his life, and\nis respected as an honest and humble working man; that is to say, he is\nregarded by society as Mr. Dorgan was regarded by Mr. Dooley--\"he is a\nfine man, and I despise him.\"\n\nWhat causes these two free wills to will so differently? One boy knew\nmore than the other boy. He \"knew better.\" All knowledge is environment.\nBoth boys had free wills. It was in knowledge they differed:\nenvironment!\n\nThose who exalt the power of the will, and belittle the power of\nenvironment, belie their words by their deeds.\n\nFor they would not send their children amongst bad companions or allow\nthem to read bad books. They would not say the children have free will\nand therefore have power to take the good and leave the bad.\n\nThey know very well that evil environment has power to pervert the will,\nand that good environment has power to direct it properly.\n\nThey know that children may be made good or bad by good or evil\ntraining, and that the will follows the training.\n\nThat being so, they must also admit that the children of other people\nmay be made good or bad by training.\n\nAnd if a child gets bad training, how can free will save it? Or how can\nit be blamed for being bad? It never had a chance to be good. That they\nknow this is proved by their carefulness in providing their own children\nwith better environment.\n\nAs I have said before, every church, every school, every moral lesson is\na proof that preachers and teachers trust to good environment, and not\nto free will, to make children good.\n\nIn this, as in so many other matters, actions speak louder than words.\n\nThat, I hope, disentangles the many knots into which thousands of\nlearned men have tied the simple subject of free will; and disposes of\nthe claim that man is responsible because his will is free. But there is\none other cause of error, akin to the subject, on which I should like to\nsay a few words.\n\nWe often hear it said that a man is to blame for his conduct because \"he\nknows better.\"\n\nIt is true that men do wrong when they know better. Macbeth \"knew\nbetter\" when he murdered Duncan. But it is true, also, that we often\nthink a man \"knows better,\" when he does not know better.\n\nFor a man cannot be said to know a thing until he believes it.\n\nIf I am told that the moon is made of green cheese, it cannot be said\nthat I _know_ it to be made of green cheese.\n\nMany moralists seem to confuse the words \"to know\" with the words \"to\nhear.\"\n\nJones reads novels and plays opera music on Sunday. The Puritan says\nJones \"knows better,\" when he means that Jones has been told that it is\nwrong to do those things.\n\nBut Jones does not know that it is wrong. He has heard someone say that\nit is wrong, but does not believe it. Therefore it is not correct to say\nthat he knows it.\n\nAnd, again, as to that matter of belief. Some moralists hold that it is\nwicked not to believe certain things, and that men who do not believe\nthose things will be punished.\n\nBut a man cannot believe a thing he is told to believe: he can only\nbelieve a thing which he _can_ believe; and he can only believe that\nwhich his own reason tells him is true.\n\nIt would be no use asking Sir Roger Ball to believe that the earth is\nflat. He _could not_ believe it.\n\nIt is no use asking an agnostic to believe the story of Jonah and the\nwhale. He _could not_ believe it. He might pretend to believe it. He\nmight try to believe it. But his reason would not allow him to believe\nit.\n\nTherefore it is a mistake to say that a man \"knows better,\" when the\nfact is that he has been told \"better\" and cannot believe what he has\nbeen told.\n\nThat is a simple matter, and looks quite trivial; but how much ill-will,\nhow much intolerance, how much violence, persecution, and murder have\nbeen caused by the strange idea that a man is wicked because _his_\nreason _cannot_ believe that which to another man's reason seems quite\ntrue.\n\nFree will has no power over a man's belief. A man cannot believe by\nwill, but only by conviction. A man cannot be forced to believe. You may\nthreaten him, wound him, beat him, burn him; and he may be frightened,\nor angered, or pained; but he cannot _believe_, nor can he be made to\nbelieve. Until he is convinced.\n\nNow, truism as it may seem, I think it necessary to say here that a man\ncannot be convinced by abuse, nor by punishment He can only be convinced\nby _reason_.\n\nYes. If we wish a man to believe a thing, we shall find a few words of\nreason more powerful than a million curses, or a million bayonets. To\nburn a man alive for failing to believe that the sun goes round the\nworld is not to convince him. The fire is searching, but it does not\nseem to him to be relevant to the issue. He never doubted that fire\nwould burn; but perchance his dying eyes may see the sun sinking down\ninto the west, as the world rolls on its axis. He dies in his belief.\nAnd knows no \"better.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER ELEVEN--SELF-CONTROL\n\nTHE subject of self-control is another simple matter which has been made\ndifficult by slovenly thinkers.\n\nWhen we say that the will is not free, and that men are made by heredity\nand environment, we are met with the astonishing objection that if such\nwere the case there could be no such things as progress or morality.\n\nWhen we ask why, we are told that if a man is the creature of heredity\nand environment it is no use his making any effort: what is to be, will\nbe.\n\nBut a man makes efforts because he wants something; and whether he be\na \"free agent,\" or a \"creature of heredity and environment,\" he will\ncontinue to want things, and so he will continue to make efforts to get\nthem.\n\n\"But,\" say the believers in free will, \"the fact that he tries to get\nthings shows that his will is free.\"\n\nNot at all. The fact is that heredity and environment compel him to want\nthings, and compel him to try for them.\n\nThe earth does not move of its own free will; but it moves. The earth\nis controlled by two forces: one is centrifugal force, the other is the\nforce of gravity. Those two forces compel it to move, and to move in a\ncertain path, or orbit.\n\n\"But a man does not move in a regular path or orbit.\" Neither does the\nearth. For every planet draws it more or less out of its true course.\nAnd so it is with man: each influence in his environment affects him in\nsome way.\n\nIn every case the force of heredity compels us to move, and the force of\nenvironment controls or changes our movements.\n\nAnd as this is a subject of great importance, and one upon which there\nis much confusion of thought, I shall ask my readers to give me their\nbest attention, so that we may make it thoroughly clear and plain.\n\nThe control of man by heredity and environment is not the end of all\neffort; on the contrary, it is the beginning of all effort.\n\nWe do not say that the control of the earth by gravity and centrifugal\nforce is the end of its motion: we know that it is the _cause_ of its\nmotion.\n\nBut, we shall be told, \"the earth cannot resist. It is compelled to act\nMan is free.\"\n\nMan is not free. Man is compelled to act. Directly a child is born it\nbegins to act From that instant until the end of its life, it continues\nto act It _must_ act It cannot cease from action. The force of heredity\ncompels it to act.\n\nAnd the nature of its actions is decided:\n\n1. By the nature of the individual: which is his heredity.\n\n2. By his experiences and training: which are his environment\n\nTherefore to cease from all action is impossible. Therefore it is\nnonsense to say that if we are creatures of heredity and environment we\nshall cease to act.\n\nBut, it may be said, a man can cease from action: he has power to kill\nhimself.\n\nWell: the earth has power to destroy itself if it is caused to destroy\nitself. And man cannot destroy himself unless he is caused to destroy\nhimself.\n\nFor the nature of a man--through heredity--is to love life. No man\ndestroys himself without a cause. He may go mad, he may be in great\ngrief, he may be disappointed, jealous, angry. But there is always a\ncause when a man takes his own life. And, be the cause what it may,\nit belongs to environment. So that a man cannot even take his own life\nuntil heredity and environment cause him to do it.\n\nBut there is a second argument, to the effect that if we believe\nourselves to be creatures of heredity and environment we shall cease to\nmake any effort to be good, or to be better than we are.\n\nThose who use such an argument do not understand the nature and power of\nenvironment. Environment is powerful for good as well as for evil.\n\nWell. We have seen that it is impossible for us to cease to act. Now we\nare told that we shall cease to act well.\n\nBut our acting well or ill depends upon the nature of our heredity and\nenvironment.\n\nIf our heredity be good, and if our environment be good, we _must_ act\nwell: we cannot help it.\n\nIf our heredity be bad, and if our environment be bad, we must act ill:\nwe cannot help it.\n\n\"What? Do you mean to say I cannot be good if I try?\"\n\nIs it not evident that you must have some good in you if you wish to\ntry? That good is put there by heredity and environment.\n\n\"But even a bad man sometimes tries to be good.\"\n\nThat is slovenly thinking. 'A man who is _all_ bad has no desire for\ngood. Any man who has a desire for good is not all bad.\n\nTherefore a man who is \"bad\" never tries to be good, and a man who tries\nto be good is not \"bad.\" When it is said that a bad man tries to be good\nthe idea is that a very imperfect man tries to be rather better.\n\nAnd he tries to be rather better because heredity or environment causes\nhim to wish to be rather better.\n\nBefore a man can wish to be good he must know what goodness is. All men\nare born destitute of knowledge. To know what goodness is he must learn.\nAll learning is environment.\n\nBut when a man knows what is good, and wishes to be good, he will try to\nbe good. He cannot help trying. And he will try just as hard, and just\nas long as his temperament and training cause him to try; and he will\nsucceed in being just as good as his temperament and training cause him\nto be. And his temperament is heredity, and his training is environment.\n\nIt does not follow, then, that because a man is that which heredity\nand environment make him, he will be nothing, for they will _make_ him\nsomething. It does not follow that he will be bad, for they will make\nhim good or bad, as they are good or bad.\n\n\"Then,\" exclaims the confused opponent, \"the man himself counts for\nnothing: he is a mere machine.\"\n\nNo. He is not a \"mere machine\": he is a mere man; and he counts for just\nas much as his heredity and environment amount to, for his heredity and\nenvironment are _he_.\n\n\"But to tell a youth that he is a creature of heredity and environment\nwould discourage him.\" Not if he understood what was meant. As we want\nto get this subject perfectly clear let us put a speech in two ways.\n\nA youth tells his father that he would like to be a painter. The\nfather's reply may be varied as follows. First, let us suppose the\nfather says:\n\n\"You will be just as good a painter as your heredity and environment\nallow, or compel you to be.\n\n\"If you have any hereditary talent for the art, so much the better. But\npainting requires something more than talent: it requires knowledge, and\npractice. The more knowledge and practice you get the better you will\npaint. The less hereditary talent you possess, the more knowledge and\npractice you will need. Therefore, if you want to be a good painter, you\nmust work hard.\"\n\nThe second speech would leave out the word hereditary before the word\ntalent, and would begin, \"You will be just as a good a painter as your\ntalent and industry will make you.\" Otherwise the speeches would not\ndiffer.\n\nBut are we to suppose that the first speech would discourage a boy who\nwanted to be a painter? Not at all: if the boy understood what heredity\nand environment mean. It tells him that he can only be as good a\npainter as _his_ talent and _his_ industry will make him. But it does\nnot tell him what are the limits of his industry and talent, for nobody\nknows what the limits are. That can only be settled by trying.\n\nTo know that he cannot get more out of a gold reef than there is in it,\ndoes not discourage a miner. What he wants is to get all there is in it,\nand until he wants no more, or believes there is no more, he will keep\non digging.\n\nIt is so with any human effort. We all know that we cannot do more than\nwe can, whether we believe in free will or no. But we do not know how\nmuch we can do, and nobody can tell us. The only way is to try. And we\ntry just as hard as our nature and our desire impel us to try, and just\nas long as any desire or any hope remains.\n\nNot only that, we commonly try when the limit of our attainment is in\nsight. For we try to get as near the limit as we can.\n\nFor instance. A young man adopts literature as his trade. He knows that\nbefore he dips a pen into a bottle that he will _never_ reach the level\nof Shakespeare and Homer. But he tries to do as well as he can. A miner\nmight be sure that his reef would not yield a million; but he would go\non and get all he could.\n\nSo it is in the case of a desire for virtue. A man knows that he cannot\nbe better than his nature and his knowledge allow him to be. He knows\nthat he will never be as good as the best. But he wants to be good, and\nhe tries to be as good as he can. The fact that a private soldier is\nnot likely to get a commission does not prevent him from trying to get\na sergeant-major's stripes. The knowledge that he is not likely to\nget twenty-one bull's-eyes in a match does not prevent a rifleman from\ngetting all the bull's-eyes he can.\n\nSo with our young painter. All desire is hereditary. All knowledge is\nenvironment. The boy wants to be a painter, and he knows that industry\nand practice will help to make him a good painter. Therefore he\ntries. He tries just as hard as his desire (his heredity) and the\nencouragements of his master and his friends (environment) cause him to\ntry.\n\nWe do not say that it is no use trying to be good, no use trying to be\nclever. On the contrary, we say that no man can be good or clever unless\nhe does try; but that his desire to try, his power to try, and\nhis knowledge of the value of trying are parts of his heredity and\nenvironment A boy says, \"I cannot do this sum.\" His friend says, \"Try\nagain. I had to try six times; but I did it.\" That encouragement is\nenvironment.\n\nA man says, \"I cannot keep steady. I have tried.\" His friend says, \"Yes,\nyou can. Try again. Keep on trying. Try for your children's sake.\"\nThat speech is environment. We advise a weakly lad to try a course of\ngymnastics, and encourage him to persevere. That is environment.\n\nIn another book of mine, \"God and My Neighbour,\" I said something that\nwas pounced upon as inconsistent with my belief. One paper asked what I\nwould give to \"cancel that fatal admission.\" Many critics said in their\nhaste that I had \"given my case away.\"\n\nBut I am so far from regretting that paragraph that I will repeat it\nhere, and will prove that it is not inconsistent with my belief, and\nthat it does not \"give my case away.\" The passage is as follows:\n\nI believe that I am what heredity and environment made me. But I know\nthat I can make myself better or worse if I try. I know that because I\nhave learnt it, and the learning has been part of my environment.\n\nWhat is there in that paragraph that is inconsistent with my belief?\n\n\"I know\"--how do I know anything? _All_ knowledge is from environment.\n\"I know\" (through environment) that I can do something \"if I try.\"\n\nWhat causes me to try? If I try to write better, or to live better, it\nis evident that I wish to write better, or to live better. What makes me\nwish? Heredity and environment.\n\nIt may be inherited disposition to do the things called good. It may be\nlove of approbation. Those are parts of my heredity.\n\nIt may be that I wish to do the things called good because I have\nbeen taught that I ought to do them. That teaching would be part of\nmy environment Therefore the desire to be good, or better, and the\nknowledge that I can be good, or better, if I try, arise from and belong\nto heredity and environment.\n\n\"But to try. Does not that show free will?\" I have just proved that I\ntry because I wish to succeed, and that environment has taught me that I\ncannot succeed without trying.\n\n\"But does not the free will come in when I decide whether to do good or\nbad things?\" No. For that has already been decided for me by heredity\nand environment, which have made me wish to do good things.\n\nSo there is nothing wrong with that paragraph. The fault was in my\ncritics, who had failed to understand the subject upon which they were\ntrying to argue.\n\nA man can only try if heredity or environment causes him to want to try,\nand he can only keep on trying as long as heredity and environment cause\nhim to keep on.\n\nOne man is born with more talent than another. And one man is born\nwith more industry, or with more ambition, or with more hope, patience,\ndetermination, than another.\n\nAnd the man who is more ambitious, or more patient, or more hopeful, or\nmore determined, will try harder, and will try longer than the man who\nis less ambitious, or hopeful, or determined.\n\nHeredity settles that.\n\nBut the man who has less of the qualities that make one try, may be\nspurred on by a teacher, a friend, or a powerful motive, and so may try\nharder and longer than the stronger man.\n\nAs, for example, a man who has given up trying to succeed in some\nenterprise, may fall in love, and then the added desire to marry the\nwoman he loves, may cause him to try harder than ever, and may lead him\nto succeed.\n\nBut these things belong to his environment.\n\nNot only that, but they are a proof that environment can move a man when\nfree will fails. For the man has a free will before he falls in love.\nBut he loses heart, and does not succeed in his enterprise. But love,\nwhich is environment, supplies a new desire, and he does succeed.\n\nWhy does he succeed? Because he wants to marry, and he cannot marry\nuntil he succeeds. This desire to marry comes of environment, and it\nrules the will, and compels the will to will a further effort. Is it not\nso?\n\nAlthough we say that man is the creature of heredity and environment,\nwe do not say that he has no self-control. We only say that his\nself-control comes from heredity and environment, and is limited and\ncontrolled by heredity and environment.\n\nHe can only \"do as he likes\" when heredity and environment cause him \"to\nlike,\" and he can only \"do as he likes,\" so far and so long as heredity\nand environment enable him to go on.\n\nA man \"can be good if he tries,\" but not unless heredity and environment\ncause him to wish to try.\n\nBut for heredity he could not lift a finger: he would not have a finger\nto lift. But for environment he could not learn to use a finger. He\ncould never know good from bad.\n\nWe all know that we can train and curb ourselves, that we can weed out\nbad habits, and cultivate good habits. No one has any doubt about that.\nThe question is what causes us to do the one or the other. The answer\nis--heredity and environment.\n\nWe can develop our muscles, our brains, our morals; and we can develop\nthem enormously.\n\nBut before we can do these things we must _want_ to do them, and we must\nknow that we _can_ do them, and how to do them; and all knowledge, and\nall desire comes from environment and heredity.\n\nA youth wishes to be strong. Why? Say he has been reading Mr. Sandow's\nbook. He is told there that by doing certain exercises every day he\ncan very greatly increase his strength. This sets him to work at the\ndumb-bells. There may be many motives impelling him. One group form a\ngeneral desire to be strong: that is heredity. But the spur that moves\nhim is Sandow's book, and that spur, and the information as to how to\nproceed, are environment.\n\nThe youth begins, and for a few months he does the exercises every\nmorning. But they begin to get irksome.\n\nHe is tired, he has a slight cold, he wants to read or write. He\nneglects the exercises. Then he remembers that he cannot get strong\nunless he perseveres and does the work regularly, and he goes on again.\nOr he neglects his training for awhile, until he meets another youth who\nhas improved himself. Then he goes back to the dumb-bells.\n\nIs not this, to our own knowledge, the kind of thing that happens to us\nall, in all kinds of self-training, whether it be muscular, mental, or\nmoral?\n\nWhat causes the fluctuations? Let the reader examine his own conduct,\nand he will find a continual shifting and conflict of motives. And he\nwill never find a motive that cannot be traced to his temperament or\ntraining, to his heredity or environment.\n\nA man wants to learn French, or shorthand. Let him ask himself why he\nwants to learn, and he will find the motive springs from temperament or\ntraining. He begins to learn. He finds the work difficult and irksome.\nHe has to spur himself on by all kinds of expedients. Finally he learns,\nor he gives up trying to learn; and he will find that his action\nhas been settled by a contest between his desire to be able to write\nshorthand, or to speak French, and his dislike to the drudgery of\nlearning; or that his action has been settled by a conflict between\nhis desire to know shorthand, or French, and his desire to do something\nelse. He does the thing he most desires to do. And all desire comes from\nheredity or from environment.\n\nEvery member of his body, every faculty, every impulse is fixed for him\nby heredity; every kind of knowledge, every kind of encouragement or\ndiscouragement comes of environment.\n\nI hope we have made that quite clear, and now we may ask to what it\nleads us.\n\nAnd we shall find that it leads us to the conclusion that everything a\nman does is, at the instant when he does it, the only thing he _can_ do:\nthe only thing _he_ can do, _then_.\n\n\"What! do you mean to say-?\" Yes. It is startling. But let us keep our\nheads cool and our eyes wide open, and we shall find that it is quite\ntrue, and that it is not difficult to understand.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER TWELVE--GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?\n\nWE are to ask whether it is true that everything a man does is the only\nthing he could do, at the instant of his doing it.\n\nThis is a very important question, because if the answer is yes, all\npraise and all blame are undeserved.\n\n\n_ALL_ PRAISE AND _ALL_ BLAME.\n\nLet us take some revolting action as a test.\n\nA tramp has murdered a child on the highway, has robbed her of a few\ncoppers, and has thrown her body into a ditch.\n\n\"Do you mean to say that tramp could not help doing that? Do you mean to\nsay he is not to blame? Do you mean to say he is not to be punished?\"\n\nYes. I say all those things; and if all those things are not true this\nbook is not worth the paper it is printed on.\n\nProve it? I have proved it. But I have only instanced venial acts, and\nnow we are confronted with murder. And the horror of murder drives men\nalmost to frenzy, so that they cease to think: they can only feel.\n\nMurder. Yes, a brutal murder. It comes upon us with a sickening shock.\nBut I said in my first chapter that I proposed to defend those whom God\nand man condemn, and to demand justice for those whom God and man have\nwronged. I have to plead for the _bottom_ dog: the lowest, the most\ndetested, the worst.\n\nThe tramp has committed a murder. Man would loathe him, revile him, hang\nhim: God would cast him into outer darkness.\n\n\"Not,\" cries the pious Christian, \"if he repent.\"\n\nI make a note of the repentance and pass on.\n\nThe tramp has committed a murder. It was a cowardly and cruel murder,\nand the motive was robbery.\n\nBut I have proved that all motives and all powers; all knowledge\nand capacity, all acts and all words, are caused by heredity and\nenvironment.\n\nI have proved that a man can only be good or bad as heredity and\nenvironment cause him to be good or bad; and I have proved these things\nbecause I have to claim that all punishments and rewards, all praise and\nblame, are undeserved.\n\nAnd now, let us try this miserable tramp--our brother.\n\n\nGUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?\n\nThe tramp has murdered a child for her money. What is his defence?\n\nI appear for the prisoner, and claim that he is not responsible for his\nact.\n\n(Cries of shame! bosh! lynch him!)\n\nI will first of all remind the court of the reasons upon which I base my\nclaim.\n\n(Gentleman in white tie rises and declaims vehemently against the\nimmorality of the defence. Talks excitedly about the flood gates of\nanarchy, and the bulwarks of society, and is with difficulty persuaded\nto resume his seat.)\n\nClerical environment does not make for toleration and sweet\nreasonableness. I proceed to open my case.\n\nEvery quality of body or mind possessed by a child at birth has been\nhanded down to the child by its ancestors.\n\nThe child could not select its ancestors; could not select its own\nqualities of body and mind.\n\nTherefore the child is not to blame for any evil quality of body or mind\nwith which it is born.\n\nTherefore this tramp was not to blame if, at the moment of birth, his\nnature was prone to violence or to vice.\n\nThe prisoner is a criminal. He is either a criminal born, or a criminal\nmade.\n\nIf he is a \"born criminal\" he is a victim of atavism, and ought not to\nbe blamed, but pitied. For it is not a fault, but a misfortune, to be\nborn an atavist.\n\nHad a tiger killed the child, we should have to admit that such is the\ntiger's nature; as it is the nature of a lark to sing.\n\nBut, if the prisoner is an atavist it is _his_ nature to be furious and\ncruel.\n\nWe cannot, however, be sure that a man is a \"born criminal\" because he\ncommits a murder. So great is the power of environment for evil, as well\nas for good, that perhaps the most innocent and humane man in this court\nmight, by the influence of an evil environment, have been made capable\nof an act as horrible.\n\nIf the prosecution adopt the course I expect them to adopt, and claim\nthat the unfortunate prisoner \"knew better\": if they succeed in proving\nthat the prisoner was well-educated, carefully brought up, and never in\nall his life was once exposed to any evil influence, then I shall claim\nthat such evidence proves the prisoner to be atavist, and entitles him\nto a verdict of unsound mind.\n\nBecause no man whose whole environment had been good, would be capable\nof murdering a child for a few coppers, unless he were an atavist or\ninsane.\n\nOn the other hand, if it should appear, in the course of evidence, that\nthe prisoner was born of criminal and ignorant parents, was brought\nup in an atmosphere of violence and crime, was sent out, untaught, or\nevilly taught, and undisciplined, to scramble for a living; if it should\nbe proved that he fell into bad company, that he turned thief, that he\nwas sent to prison and branded as a felon: if it should be proved that\nhe has been hunted by the police, flogged with the \"cat\" by warders,\nbullied by counsel, denounced by magistrates and judges; if it should be\nproved that he has been treated at every turn of his wretched career\nas a wild beast or a pariah; if it should be proved that he has been\nallowed to degenerate into an ignorant, a savage, a bestial and a\ndrunken loafer; then, I shall plead that this miserable man has\nbeen reduced to his present morose, cruel, and immoral state by evil\nenvironment; and I shall ask for a verdict in his favour. (Cries of\nMonster! Hang him! Lynch him!)\n\nIt is said the prisoner is an inhuman monster. He has been made a\nmonster by a monstrous heredity; or he has been made a monster by a\nmonstrous environment.\n\nNo man of sound heredity ever becomes a monster save by the action of an\nevil environment.\n\nSay the prisoner is an atavist; a man bred back to the beasts. Then he\nis entitled to be judged by the standard we apply to beasts.\n\nSome of you will remember Poe's story of the murder in the Rue Morgue,\nin which a terrible murder is done by an ape. In such a case our horror\nand our anger would probably cause us to shoot the ape. But that would\nbe the uprising within us of our own atavistic and brutish passions; it\nwould not be the result of our promptings of our human reason. Reason\nmight prompt us to kill the ape as a precaution against a repetition of\nviolence. But anger and hate are not reasonable, not human: all anger\nand all hate are bestial--like the hate and the anger of the tramp. But\nif the prisoner is not an atavist, or brute-man, if he has been reduced\nto his present moral state of environment, ask for some measure of\ncompensation from the society; unjust laws, and dishonest social\nconditions, and immoral neglect are responsible for the fact that a\nbrother man has been allowed, or rather compelled, by society, to grow\nup an ignorant and desperate savage.\n\nBe that as it may, the prisoner is a creature of heredity and\nenvironment; and, as he is bad, the heredity, or the environment, or\nboth, must be bad. And I ask for a verdict in the prisoner's favour.\n\nWill any man on the jury say me nay? The prisoner has defied the law,\nhe has injured society, has outraged morality. Have law and morality not\ninjured him? Has society not injured him?\n\nHe has committed a terrible crime, for which it is claimed that he\nshould be punished. Who shall be punished for the crimes of the law and\nof society against him?\n\nThere is much proper and natural sympathy expressed by the prosecution\nwith the parents of the murdered child. Is there no sympathy with this\nunhappy victim of atavism, or of society? This prisoner has been bred\nas a beast, or treated as a savage, until he has become a savage and a\nbeast.\n\nHere stands a human being, poisoned, battered, and degraded beyond all\nhuman semblance. Here stands a brother man, whose soul has been murdered\nby inches, has been murdered by the society that now hales him here to\nbe denounced, and execrated, and hanged.\n\nDo I speak truth, or falsehood? Is logic true? Are facts true? That\nwhich society has here planted it has here to reap. Not all the law, the\npiety, and education in the wide, wide earth can make this ruined and\ndegraded prisoner the man he might have been. Not all the repentance we\ncan feel, not any compensation we can offer can buy him back the soul we\nhave destroyed. It is too late.\n\nGentlemen of the jury, is it nothing to you? You are accessories to the\nfact. I appeal to your justice, to your pity--\n\n(A voice: How much pity had he for the child?)\n\nNone. There is no pity in his soul. Either his forefathers put none\nthere, or society has destroyed it.\n\n(Cries of monstrous! immoral! preposterous! shame!)\n\nI hear cries of monstrous and immoral. But I do not hear any voice say\n\"false.\" Is there a man in court can impeach my reasoning, or disprove\nmy facts? Is there a man in court can deny one statement I have made?\nIs there a man in court can break one link of the steel chain of logic\nI have riveted upon our metaphysicians, our moralists, our kings, our\njudges, and our gods?\n\nYou say my defence is unreasonable and immoral. You dread the effects\nof justice and of reason upon society. You talk of crime and cruelty, of\nlaw and order. You want the prisoner punished. You ask for justice:\nbut you want revenge. Give me a fair hearing, and I will speak of these\nthings to you.\n\nWhen you cry out that to deny responsibility is immoral you are\nthinking, at the back of your heads, that men can only be kept within\nthe law by fear; that wrong-doing can only be repressed by punishment.\n\nIt is the old and cruel conventions of society that hold you fast to\nthe error that blame and punishment are righteous and salutary. It is\nignorance of human nature that betrays you into the belief that men can\nbe made honest and benevolent by cruelty and terror.\n\nPunishment has never been just, has never been effectual. Punishment has\nalways failed of its purpose: the greater its severity, the more abject\nits failure.\n\nMen cannot be made good and gentle by means of violence and wrong.\nThe real tamers and purifiers of human hearts are love and charity and\nreason.\n\nYou seem to think it is a noble thing to be angry with a criminal, and\nto be angry with me for defending him. But it is always ignoble to be\nangry.\n\nSome of you deny this blood-stained murderer for your brother; but\ndirectly your features are distorted by passion, directly your fury\novercomes your reason, directly you begin to shriek for his blood, your\nclose relationship to him appears.\n\nReason, patience, self-control, these are lacking in the savage\ncriminal: I look around for them in vain amongst the crowd in this\ncourt.\n\nI said that I would take note of what our Christian friend said about\nrepentance. I will speak to that question now. There are few who so\noften forget the tenets of their own religion as the clergy. I have\nfound it so.\n\nThe clergy are always amongst the first to raise the cry of immorality\nwhen one speaks against punishment as unjust, or useless.\n\nYet the clergy preach the doctrine of repentance. It is only a few weeks\nsince the English papers printed a letter from a murderer under sentence\nof death, in which he spoke of meeting his relatives \"at the feet of\nJesus.\"\n\nIn a week from the date of his letter he expected to be in heaven. In\na month from the time when he murdered his wife, he expected to be with\nJesus, and to live in happiness and glory for ever.\n\nThat is what the prison chaplain had taught him. It is what the clergy\ndo teach. They talk of the folly and the immorality of abolishing prison\nand gallows; and then they offer the perpetrators of the most inhuman\nand terrible crimes a certainty of everlasting bliss in a sinless\nheaven.\n\nIf it is immoral and absurd to say that all criminals are sinned against\nas well as sinning; if it is immoral and absurd to say that we ought not\nto hang a man, nor to flog, nor to imprison him, what kind of morality\nand wisdom lie in offering all criminals an eternity of happiness and\nglory?\n\nThe clergy are that which their environment has made them. What kind of\nreasoning can we expect from men who have been taught that it is wicked\nto think?\n\nBefore you are angry with me for defending the prisoner be sure that you\nare not confounding the ideas of the criminal and the crime. I hate the\ncrime as much as any man here; but I do not hate the criminal. I am not\ndefending evil; I am defending the evil-doer.\n\nBefore you plume yourselves too much upon your superior morality and\ngreater love of justice, allow me to remind you that I am asking that\nthe world shall be moral, and not only this man: I am demanding justice\nfor _all_ men, and not for a few. But you--you think you have acted\nrighteously and honourably when you have hanged a murderer; but you have\nnot a thought for the inhuman social conditions that make men criminals.\nThis prisoner is but a type: a type of the legion victims of a selfish\nand cowardly society. Every day, in every city, in every country,\ninnocent children are being poisoned and perverted by millions. Which of\nyou has spoken a word or lifted a hand to prevent this wholesale wrong?\nWhat man of you all, who are so fierce against crime, so loud in praise\nof morality, has ever tried in act or speech to combat the crime and the\nimmorality which society perpetuates: with your knowledge and consent?\nYou who are so anxious to punish crime, what are you doing to prevent\nit?\n\nWhen I ask for a verdict in the prisoner's favour you assume that I\nwould set him free, assuring him that he is an injured man and that fate\ncompelled him to the act of murder.\n\nDo you think, then, that I would release a tiger amongst the crowd in a\ncircus, or that I would allow a homicidal maniac to go at large in the\nstreets of a city?\n\nIt would be folly to give to this brutalised and ignorant tramp a\nmessage which hardly a man in this court is sufficiently educated and\nrefined to understand; it would be folly to set at liberty a besotted\nsavage: it would be unsafe.\n\nBut I say to _you_ that the prisoner is a victim of heredity and\nenvironment, that he has been debased and wronged by society, and that\nto punish him is unjust.\n\n(A woman's voice: \"The monster! Kill him.\")\n\nMadam, there is not a woman here can be sure that any child she bears\nmay not be driven by society to stand some day in the dock.\n\nBut still. You are not satisfied. Some of you, at any rate, still frown\nand set your teeth hard. Logic or no logic, he has murdered a baby.\n\nThere stands my clerical friend, with knitted brows, and fire in his\neyes. But that his calling checks his fierce old Saxon heredity\nthis parson would echo the stern speech of Carlyle to the criminal:\n\"Scoundrel! Know that we for ever hate thee!\"\n\nAh! I thought so. The cloud begins to clear from the face of my clerical\nfriend: the crowd look hopeful. Grim old Thomas appeals to you. The\nprisoner _is_ a scoundrel, and you _do_ hate him. Nothing I have said,\nso far, has shaken that feeling. He is a scoundrel, and you hate him.\nWhat is more, you cannot forgive me for not hating him. You cannot\nbelieve that I am a natural man. I _ought_ to hate him. Well, my\nfriends, how do we feel about a shark? I think you will find that men\nhate a shark. And I think you will find that they hate him more bitterly\nthan they hate a tiger. And I think you will find that they believe they\nhate the shark because he is cruel. But that seems to me a mistake. The\nshark is not so cruel as a cat; it is not so cruel as a shrike; it is\nnothing like so cruel as a European lady. For though the shark will\ndevour any animals it can reach, it does not deliberately torture them.\nNow the cat tortures the mouse, the shrike impales flies or beetles upon\na thorn, and leaves them to die, and the European lady eats lobster,\nwhich has, to her knowledge, been boiled, alive.\n\nBut the shark kills human beings. So do tigers, so do lions, and so do\nmen.\n\nBut the shark is horrible. Yes; now we are getting nearer the real root\nof our hatred. The shark is horrible. And so is the murderer.\n\nBut there is a difference between horror and hate. The murderer is\nhorrible to me, far more horrible than the shark, just as a mad man is\nmore horrible than a mad dog; just as a human corpse is more awful than\nthe carcase of a deer.\n\nThe criminal makes me shudder, he makes my flesh creep; my whole nature\nrecoils from him. But I do not hate him, and I do not blame him.\n\nWhich of us does not admire and honour an innocent, graceful, and\ncharming girl? To all of us, men and women, her presence is more\ndelightful than a garden of sweet flowers.\n\nThink of some such amiable and gentle creature. Then imagine that we\nmeet her ten years hence, and find her a drunken harlot, wallowing in\nthe gutter. Think of her then so hideous, filthy, and obscene; think of\nher debased, indecent, treacherous; think of her incapable of honesty,\nof gratitude, of truth; think of her sullied and broken and so vile that\nshe would betray her only friend for a glass of gin: think of her well,\nand ask yourselves how should we feel towards her.\n\nSome of us would blame her: some of us would pity her: some of us would\ntry to befriend her: but hardly one of us could endure her touch, her\nspeech, her gaze. She has become a horror in the light of the day.\n\nMy clerical friend and I would stand before her sick and sorry and\nashamed. We should be alike dismayed and shocked: we should be alike\ntouched and repelled. But there in that tragic moment would appear the\nlikeness and the difference between us. He would not _understand_.\n\nThe unfortunate woman has been rendered physically and morally loathsome\nto us. So has this murderer. But that should cause us to pity, and not\nto hate them; it should inspire us not to destroy them; but to destroy\nthe evil conditions that have brought them, and millions as unfortunate\nas they, to this terrible and shameful pass. The bitterest wrong of all\nis the fact that these fellow-creatures of ours have been degraded below\nthe reach of our help and our affection.\n\nLooking into my own heart, and recalling my experience of men and women,\nI must own that there is not one in a thousand of us who might not have\nbecome a shame and a horror to our fellows had our environment been\nas cruel and as hard as the environment of these from whom we shrink\nappalled.\n\nAnd when I read of a murder, when I see some human wreck, so repulsive\nand unsightly that my soul is sick within me, and my flesh shudders away\nfrom the contact, I crush the anger out of my heart, and remember what\nI am and might have been, and that this man, this woman, now so dreadful\nor so vile, is a victim of a state of society which most of us believe\nin and uphold.\n\nI cannot hate these miserables, but I cannot love them. I could not\nsleep in a dirty bed, nor eat a rotten peach, nor listen to a piano\nout of tune, nor drink after a leper or a slut, nor make a friend of\na sweater, nor shake the hand of an assassin, nor sit at table with a\nfilthy sot.\n\nBut to drive our fellow-creatures into disgrace and crime beyond\nredemption, and then to hate them or to hang them; is that just?\n\nTo loathe and punish the victims of society, and never lift a hand\nagainst the wrongs that are their ruin, is that reasonable?\n\nI ask for a verdict in the prisoner's favour; but I cannot ask that\nhe be set at liberty. We could not liberate a smallpox patient nor a\nlunatic.\n\nAlthough the prisoner ought not to be punished, it is imperative that he\nbe restrained.\n\nBeing what he is: being what society has made him, he is not fit to be\nat large.\n\nWe must defend ourselves against him. We must protect our children from\nhim, even although we have failed to protect other children against\nsociety.\n\nI ask the jury for a verdict in the prisoner's favour. I leave the\nprisoner to their justice and to their reason. That is my case.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THIRTEEN--THE FAILURE OF PUNISHMENT\n\nDOES it do a man any good to hang him? Does it do us any good to hang\nhim? Is any human being in the wide world edified or bettered when a man\nis hanged? Is it any _use_ hanging men?\n\nThat it is unjust to hang a man we have seen. But is it any use?\n\nThere is a certain school of moralists who are angered and alarmed\nby the mere suggestion that men should cease to blame and punish each\nother. They protest that virtue would die out and morality become a\nmockery if we ceased to scold, and whip, and execute each other. They\nseem to believe that injustice and ferocity are the best exemplars of\njustice and human kindness.\n\nDr. Aked, minister of Pembroke Chapel, Liverpool, declaiming against\nwhat he called \"this preposterous notion of moral irresponsibility,\"\ndeclared that \"it is the doctrine of every coward, of every cur, of\nevery thief who ever pilfered from his master's till, of every seducer\nand traitor the world has seen.\" I whisper the name of Torquemada, and\npass on.\n\nDr. Aked, supposing, for the sake of illustration, that he who has been\na bad man, said:\n\nIf, in the mercy of God, the day comes when I see myself as I am, when\nthere is no more shuffling, when to myself Myself is compelled, even to\nthe teeth and forehead of my faults, to give in evidence--if such a\nday comes, no juggling with words, _no nonsense about not knowing any\nbetter_ or being driven by education upon organisation, by environment\nacting on heredity, will serve to conceal from my soul the hideous view\nof its own guilt.\n\nAnd yet Dr. Aked is a minister of the Christian religion, and a\nprofessed follower of Christ, who said of his murderers, \"_Father\nforgive them, for they know not what they do_.\"\n\nI might imitate Dr. Aked, and denounce the idea that punishment makes\nmen virtuous and docile as the idea of every tyrant, of every religious\npersecutor, of every wife-beater, of every martinet, of every bully and\nbrute the world has ever seen. But I prefer to look calmly and sensibly\nat the evidence.\n\nThat mighty moral ruler, King Henry VIII., during his reign did,\naccording to the author of _Elizabethan England_, hang up seventy-two\nthousand thieves, rogues, and vagabonds.\n\nNow, Sir Thomas More, who was one of the finest men England ever bred,\nand was Lord High Chancellor under Henry VIII., has put it upon record,\nin his great and noble work, _Utopia_, that these severe punishments\nwere not only unjust, but ineffectual.\n\nI will quote from Sir Thomas:\n\nOne day when I was dining with him (Cardinal Archbishop Morton) there\nhappened to be at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to\nrun out in a high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon\nthieves, who, as he said: were then hanged so fast, that there were\nsometimes twenty on one gibbet; and upon that he said he could not\nwonder enough how it came to pass, that since so few escaped, there were\nyet so many thieves left who were still robbing in all places.\n\nUpon this, I, who took the boldness to speak freely before the Cardinal,\nsaid there was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of\npunishing thieves was neither just in itself, nor good for the public;\nfor as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual;\nsimple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his\nlife; and no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those\nfrom robbing, who can find out no other way of livelihood; and in this,\nsaid I, not only you in England, but a great part of the world, imitate\nsome ill masters that are readier to chastise their scholars than to\nteach them. There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves,\nbut it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man\nmight be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal\nnecessity of stealing, and dying for it.... If you do not find a\nremedy to these evils, it is a vain thing to boast of your severity of\npunishing theft; which, though it may have the appearance of justice,\nyet in itself is neither just nor convenient; for if you suffer your\npeople to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their\ninfancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first\neducation disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but\nthat you first make thieves, and then punish them?\n\nIn confirmation of the statement of Henry the Eighth's Lord Chancellor,\nwe have the evidence of Harrison, that after these 72,000 executions of\nHenry, there were more thieves than ever in the next reign.\n\nHarrison, who wrote in the reign of Elizabeth, says of the \"rogues and\nvagabonds\": \"the punishment that is ordained for this kind of people is\nvery sharp, and yet it cannot restrain them from their gadding.\"\n\nIn that day any one convicted, \"on the testimony of two honest and\ncredible witnesses,\" of being a \"rogue,\" \"he is then immediately\nadjudged to be grievously whipped, and burned through the gristle of the\nright ear, with a hot iron of the compass of an inch about.\" Amongst\nthe \"rogues\" were included actors, jugglers, fencers, minstrels, and\n_tinkers!_\n\nHarrison toasts that our laws against felons were more humane than those\nof the Continent. Let us consider the leniency of Elizabeth's day. A\nwoman who poisoned her husband was burnt alive. Other poisoners were\nboiled alive, or scalded to death in \"seething water or lead.\" Heretics\nand witches were burnt alive. Murderers were hanged alive in chains.\nHarrison adds: \"We have use neither of the wheel nor of the bar as in\nother countries; but when wilful manslaughter is perpetrated, besides\nhanging, the offender hath his right hand commonly stricken off, before\nor near the place where the act was done, after which he is led forth to\nthe place of execution and there put to death according to the law.\"\n\nFor treason men were \"hanged, drawn, and quartered.\"\n\nFor felony, which was anything from highway robbery to theft of a piece\nof bread, men, women, and children were hanged. There were over 250\noffences for which the penalty was death.\n\nFor \"speaking sedition against a magistrate\" the offender had both his\nears cut off.\n\nIf a prisoner refused to plead he was pressed to death under heavy\nweights.\n\nHarrison says that \"there is not one year\" in which three or four\nhundred \"rogues\" are not \"eaten up by the gallows.\" And then he goes\non to remark that so many are the idle rogues, that \"except some better\norder be taken, or the laws already made be better executed, such as\ndwell in uplandish towns and little villages shall live but in small\nsafety or rest.\"\n\nA hundred years ago there were over two hundred offences for which\nthe punishment was death. Boys and girls were hanged for theft. Mr.\nCollinson, in _Facts about Floggings_, says that in 1816 there were at\none time over fifty prisoners in England waiting to be hanged, and that\none of them was a child of tender years. Mr. Collinson says:\n\nThe inefficiency and brutality of all this torture and bloodshed became\nobvious to the people, through the propaganda of a few daring and\nenlightened reformers, and it was swept away.\n\nBut let us come nearer home. About a dozen years ago the late Mr.\nHopwood, K.C., Recorder of Liverpool, was good enough to give me his\nopinions on the subject of harsh and lenient punishment. Mr. Hopwood\nsaid:\n\nI was first convinced of the uselessness of harsh sentences by\nattendance at two courts of sessions about thirty-five years ago. The\ntwo courts were those of Manchester and Salford--towns very similar\nas to population and conditions of life. In Salford the sentences were\nuniformly lenient. In Manchester they were uniformly severe. People said\nManchester would be purged of crime; that all the criminals would flock\nto Salford. It was not so. The state of things continued for some years,\nand caused no increase of crime in the one, nor decrease of crime in\nthe other town. Hence it becomes evident that a great deal of useless\npunishment was inflicted in Manchester. I was a young barrister at the\ntime, and I took the lesson to heart.\n\nMr. Hopwood only claimed a negative result. He said: \"I do not say I\nhave reduced crime, but only that I have reduced punishment without\nincreasing crime. For instance, I claim that during my six years at this\ncourt I have saved three thousand years of imprisonment.\"\n\nWhen I remarked \"that saved a great waste of money,\" he answered that it\nwas \"a great saving of humanity.\" He claimed that life and property were\nat least as secure under a clement judge as under a cruel one, and that\nhis system saved much suffering and shame, not only to the prisoners,\nbut also to those dependent upon them. He said that very often his\ntreatment had a good effect upon the prisoners: \"Do you know, often they\nare ashamed to come back.\"\n\nMr. Hopwood told me that at first he met with strong opposition, but\nthat his example had such an effect that the local magistrates had come\n\"to give six or ten months' imprisonment in cases where formerly the\noffenders would have got seven years.\" Asked whether his leniency had\ncaused criminals to flock to Liverpool, Mr. Hopwood answered, \"Not at\nall\"; and his denial was backed by the statement of the Chief Constable\nthat \"crime was decreasing to an appreciable extent.\"\n\nMr. Hopwood told me he would like to release one-third of those men\nthen in prison, and, he added, \"another third ought never to have gone\nthere.\" Asked what that meant, he said that one-third of the prisoners\nwere innocent. My own observation, in the police-courts afterwards,\nconvinced me that he was quite right. Finally, after showing me that the\nboasted cure of garrotting by \"the cat\" was a fiction, \"there never was\na garrotter flogged,\" Mr. Hopwood asked me to go and see some of our\nprisons, remarking, gravely:\n\nThe prison system is cruel and vile. The prisoners are starved,\ntortured, and degraded. The system should be altered at once. It is\ninhumanly severe upon the guilty, and, in my opinion, a good third of\nthose in our gaols are _not_ guilty.\n\nDr. James Devon, medical officer at Glasgow Prison, told the Royal\nPhilosophical Society in that city, in 1904, that \"with milder methods\nof repression we have not more, but less, crime: and certainly much less\nbrutality.\"\n\nDr. Hamilton D. Wey, of Elmira Reformatory, 'Elmira, N. Y., says:\n\n\"The time will come when every punitive institution in the world will\nbe destroyed, and be replaced by hospitals, schools, workshops, and\nreformatories.\"\n\nDr. Lydston, professor of criminal anthropology, writes as follows:\n\n\"Try to reform your man, try to purify and elevate his soul, and if\nhe does not come to time, lock him up or hang him.\" This has been the\nwar-cry of the average reformer through all the ages. \"Make a healthy\nman of your criminal, or prospective criminal, give him a sound,\nwell-developed brain to think with, and rich, clean blood to feed it\nupon, and an opportunity to earn an honest living--then preach to him\nif you like.\" This is the fundamental principle of the scientific\ncriminologist. Which is the more rational?\n\nHavelock Ellis says in his work on \"the criminal,\" \"Flogging is\nobjectionable, because it is ineffectual, and because it brutalises and\ndegrades those on whom it is inflicted, those who inflict it, and those\nwho come within the radius of its influence.\"\n\nThe Recorder of Liverpool told me that millions were wasted upon prisons\nwhich ought to be spent upon detection. \"Make detection swift and\ncertain,\" said he, \"and crime will cease. No one will steal if he is\nsure he will be caught every time.\"\n\nThis is proved by the Revenue service. Penalties did not stop smuggling;\nbut it has now become almost impossible to run a cargo: the coast is so\nclosely guarded.\n\nDr. Lydston, in _The Diseases of Society_, says:\n\nThe prospective criminal once born, what does society do to prevent\nhis becoming a criminal? Practically nothing.... What is the remedy at\npresent in vogue? Society punishes the vicious child after a criminal\nact has been committed, and sends the diseased one to the hospital to be\nsupported by the public, after he has become helpless. Even in this, the\ntwentieth century, the child who has committed his first offence is in\nmost communities thrown by the authorities into contact with older and\nmore hardened criminals--to have his criminal education completed. The\nsame fate is meted out to the adult \"first offender.\" We have millions\nfor sectarian universities, millions for foreign missions, but few\ndollars for the redemption of children of vicious propensities or\ncorrupting opportunities, who are the product of our own vicious social\nsystem. Every penal institution, every expensive process of criminal\nlaw, is a monument to the stupidity and wastefulness of society--and\nexpenditure of money and energy to cure a disease that might be largely\nprevented, and more logically treated where not prevented.\n\nLombroso, the great Italian criminologist, said, in 1901:\n\nThere are few who understand that there is anything else for us to do,\nto protect ourselves from crime, except to inflict punishments that\nare often only new crimes, and that are almost always the source of new\ncrimes.\n\n\nTO WHAT DOES ALL THIS EVIDENCE TEND?\n\nFrom the day of Sir Thomas More to the present hour, it has been claimed\nby wise and experienced men that punishment is not only unjust, but\nworse than useless. And the statistics of crime have always supported\nthe claim.\n\nThere was more crime in the fifteenth century, when penalties were so\nsevere, than there is to-day. There were worse crimes. There was more\nbrutality.\n\nThe abolition of cruel punishments has diminished crime. The abolition\nof flogging in the army and navy has not injured either service. The\nimprovement in school discipline has not lowered the moral standard of\nboys and girls.\n\nBut, it may be urged, the decrease in crime, and the improvement in\nmorals are not due only to the increased leniency of punishments. They\nare due also to the spread of education, and to the improved conditions\nof life.\n\nExactly. That is my case. Decrease of punishment, and increase of\neducation, have diminished crime and improved morals.\n\nPunish less, and teach more; blame less, and encourage more; hate less,\nand love more; and you will get not a lowering, but a raising of the\nmoral standard; not an increase in crime, but a decrease. And the\nimprovement will be due to alteration for the better of--environment.\n\nChance has placed me very often in positions of authority. I have been\nin charge of rough and reckless men: soldiers, militiamen, navvies,\nworkers of all sorts. I have never found it necessary to be harsh, nor\nto threaten, nor to drive. I have always found that to respect men as\nmen, to treat them fairly and quietly, and to show a little kindness now\nand again, has sufficed to get the best out of them.\n\nI have gone into the midst of a crowd of Irish soldiers, all drunk, and\nall fighting in true Donnybrook fashion, and have got order without a\nhard word, without making a single prisoner. Directly they recognised me\nthey calmed down. Had I been a sergeant disliked by them they would have\nthrown me downstairs.\n\nI have found the wildest and the lowest amenable to reason and to\nkindness. One of the greatest ruffians in the regiment once spoke rudely\nto me in camp, and even threatened me. I was then a lance-corporal,\nand a mere boy. I sat down and talked to the bruiser quietly for a few\nminutes, and from that day he would have done anything for me.\n\nThere was a blackguard in my company who once threatened to murder me.\nA few months later he was taken ill in the night and I attended to him,\nand probably saved his life. He never forgot it. It was but a small\nkindness, and he was what is generally called a scoundrel, but he showed\nhis gratitude to me all the rest of the time I was in the army.\n\nAs a child I was brought up under strict discipline. I felt that it was\na wrong method. I have \"spoilt\" my children; and they are better than I\never was.\n\nParents beat their children for their own errors. If a father cannot\ngain the respect and obedience of his children, it is because he is\nfoolish, or violent, or ignorant. Children, soldiers, and animals are\nalike in one respect: they know and respect strength and reason. The\nquiet manager, officer, sergeant, parent, who knows his own mind, who\nkeeps his temper, who is not afraid, can always get discipline and\norder. If I thought any one under my control or care was afraid of me, I\nshould feel ashamed. If a master rules only by fear of punishment he is\nnot fit to rule at all. When those over whom we happen to be placed in\nauthority feel that we deserve their respect, we get it If you want\nto know whether a man is fit for command, put him with men who are not\nbound to obey him. Put him with his equals, where he has no power to\npunish nor to harm. Thus you will find the real leader of men: the man\nwho leads with his brains.\n\nI knew a young lieutenant once, a boy of twenty. He met a boy private in\ntown, and saw that he had been drinking. Had he made a prisoner of the\nboy, the private would have got punished for drunkenness, and would have\ngot drunk again. But the young officer sent for the boy the next day and\nsaid, \"If I were you, Thomas, I wouldn't drink. It is a poor game, and\nyour people would not like it\" That boy was cured.\n\nThat same officer, if the men were unsteady on parade, would stand quite\nstill and _look_ at them. He had clear blue eyes, and his look was\nnot stern, it was calm and confident. It brought the whole company to\nattention without a word. The officer was a _man_, and the men knew it,\nand they knew it because _he_ knew it The boss who begins to bully is\nnot sure of himself. Children, soldiers, workers, and animals know by\ninstinct when the boss is not sure of himself.\n\nThose who put so much trust in blame and punishment do not understand\nhuman nature. I said in a previous chapter that a man could not believe\na thing unless his reason told him that it was true. I now say that a\nman cannot help believing a thing when his reason tells him it is true.\nThe secret of reform is to make men understand.\n\nThe terrors of capital punishment, the terrors of the \"cat,\" even the\nterrors of hell-fire fail to awe the criminal. That is because the\ncriminal is stupid or ignorant, and lacks imagination. He hears of hell,\nand of death. But he cannot imagine either. He seldom thinks. He seldom\nlooks beyond the end of his nose.\n\nDiscipline is not preserved in the army by the dread of the \"cat,\" nor\nof the cells. It is kept by the fact that the wildest and most reckless\nman knows that he _must_ obey, that the whole physical and moral force\nof the army is united to insist upon obedience.\n\nIf he disobey an order he will be punished. He does not care a snap of\nhis fingers for the punishment. But he knows that after he has done his\npunishment drill the order will be repeated, and that he will be obliged\nto obey. He knows that the sentiment of the army is against him until he\ndoes obey.\n\nI have seen an officer get a battalion into a mess on parade, and then\nlose his temper and bully the men.. And I have seen another officer\non the same day drill the men and get them to work like a machine. The\nfirst officer did not know how to give the orders. The second knew his\nbusiness, was sure that he did know it, and so let the men feel that he\nknew it.\n\nIt is with parents as with those two officers. The one who knows his\nduty, and does it properly, never has any occasion to lose his temper.\n\nIt is time Solomon's rod followed the witches' broom. It is time the\n\"cat,\" and the chain, and the cell, and the convict's dress, and\nthe oakum and the skilly, and the gallows followed the rack and the\nthumbscrew and the faggot and the wheel. It is time the leaders of the\npeople were taught to lead. It is time the educated and the uneducated\nwere given some real education. It is time that tyranny, cruelty,\nself-righteousness, superstition, and the bad old conventions of an\nignorant past, gave place to reason, to science, to manhood.\n\n\"But,\" the penal moralist will demand, \"if you propose to abolish blame\nand punishment, what do you propose to put in their place?\"\n\nAnd I answer, \"Justice, knowledge, and reason--in fact, an improved\nenvironment.\"\n\nThe cause of most of our social and moral troubles is ignorance.\n\nBy ignorance I do not mean illiteracy only: there are many classical\nscholars who are really ignorant men. No: I mean ignorance of human\nnature and of the essentials to a happy and wholesome human life. It is\nthis kind of ignorance which divides the people into two classes: rich\nand poor--masters and slaves. It is this kind of ignorance which causes\nmen to sacrifice health, happiness, and virtue for the sake of vanity,\nand idleness, and wealth. It is the kind of ignorance which keeps twelve\nmillions of people in a rich and fertile country always on the verge of\ndestitution. It is this kind of ignorance which saddles mankind with the\ncost of armies, and fleets, and prisons, and police. It is this kind\nof ignorance which breeds millions of criminals, and educates them in\ncrime. It is this kind of ignorance which splits a great nation into\ncastes, and sects, and makes the realisation of the glorious ideal of\nhuman brotherhood impossible. It is this kind of ignorance which drives\nprofessing Christians to neglect the teachings of Christ. It is this\nkind of ignorance which makes possible the millionaire, the aristocrat,\nthe sweater, the tramp, the thief, the degenerate, and the slave. It is\nthis kind of ignorance which keeps the children hungry, drives the men\nto drunkenness, and the women to shame. It is this kind of ignorance\nwhich is answerable for all evil environments from which hate, and\ngreed, and poverty, and immorality spring, like weeds from a rank and\nneglected soil.\n\nWe cannot get rid of this most deadly form of ignorance by means of\nblame and punishment. There is only one way to drive out ignorance, and\nthat is by spreading knowledge.\n\nWhat knowledge? Knowledge of human nature and of the essentials to a\nhappy and wholesome life.\n\nIt is bad for men to be rich and idle; it is bad for men to be ill-fed,\nill-clothed, ill-housed, ill-taught, unhonoured, and unloved.\n\nWhilst life is a sordid scramble, in which the prizes are pernicious\nwealth, and luxury, and idleness, and in which the blanks are hunger,\nignorance, vice, unhappiness, the prison, and the gallows; immorality\nand crime must flourish as pestilence flourishes in a filthy, pent, and\ninsanitary city. It is sad to see the custodians of the public morality\nbewailing the wickedness of men, and fostering the evil surroundings\nfrom which evil springs. It is as foolish as to bewail the presence of\nmalarial fever, to punish the victims for spreading the disease, and at\nthe same time to refuse to drain the marsh from which the malaria comes,\nbecause it is the property of a grand duke, who wishes to shoot wildfowl\nthere.\n\nWhat do I propose should be done. Why that, my friends, is another\nstory. What I propose at present to do is to prove that crime and\nimmorality are _caused_: to show what the causes are; and to point out\nthat the recognised remedies are ineffectual.\n\nWhile we have an idle rich, and a hungry and ignorant poor, we cannot\nget rid of vice and crime. To punish the criminals we have made, is\nunjust and useless; to pray for deliverance from plague: we must look to\nthe drains--we must improve the environment.\n\nNo man should be idle. No man should be rich. No man should be ignorant,\nno man destitute. Every man should have a chance to earn the essentials\nto a wholesome, happy, temperate, and useful life. Every child should be\nnourished, and taught, and trained.\n\nCrime, vice, disease, poverty, idleness: all these are preventable\nevils.\n\nBut we cannot drain our marshes, because, little as we heed the misery\nof the people, the ignorance and hunger of the children, the despair of\nthe men and the degradation of the women, we are marvellously tender of\nGrand Ducal sport.\n\nIt is Mammon we worship, not God; it is property we prize, not life;\nit is vanity we love, and not our fellow-creatures. We are an ignorant,\natavistic people; and our priests are wondrous moral.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FOURTEEN--SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED\n\nTHE upholders of the doctrine of free will commonly fall into the error\nof considering heredity and environment apart from each other.\n\nFather Adderley, in a lecture given at Saltley, told his hearers that\n\"all our great scientists agree that people have the power to overcome\ntheir hereditary tendencies.\" Perhaps: but they can only get that power\nfrom environment; and if the environment is bad they will not get that\npower.\n\nBut the most surprising example of this mental squinting is afforded by\nthe Rev. C. A. Hall, who may be said to squint with both eyes. For, in\na lecture given at Paisley, this gentleman first shows that we\ncan overcome our heredity, and then shows that we can overcome our\nenvironment And yet it never occurred to him that to prove the freedom\nof the will we must be able to overcome our heredity and environment\ntogether.\n\nMr. Hall's argument may be stated thus: By the aid of environment we can\novercome our heredity; by the aid of heredity, or of good environment we\ncan overcome bad environment; therefore we are superior to heredity and\nenvironment.\n\nIt is like saying: by means of natural intelligence and a good teacher\nI can become a good scholar; by means of natural intelligence and a good\nteacher I can correct the errors of a bad teacher. Therefore I do not\ndepend upon intelligence nor teaching for my knowledge.\n\nBut I have answered Messrs. Adderley and Hall in my chapter on\nself-control.\n\nAn example of a similar error is afforded by a clergyman who wrote to me\nfrom Warrington. He said:\n\nYou can never hope to improve the social environment until you\n_persuade_ men that they can rise superior to their circumstances.\n\nThe men are to be \"persuaded\" to rise. And what is that persuasion,\nbut a part of their environment? And if men are \"persuaded\" to try, and\nsucceed, to whom is the victory due? Is it not due to the \"persuasion\"?\nOf course it is. And the persuasion came from outside themselves, and is\npart of their environment.\n\nThe same clergyman said, \"If heredity and environment have made the\nindividuals of whom society is made up, heredity and environment have\nmade society itself,\" and asked me how I could logically accuse society\nof injuring any one.\n\nA strange question based upon a misunderstanding. The criminal injures\nsociety, society injures the criminal.\n\nI accuse both of injurious action. I _blame_ neither. I say both are\nthat which heredity and environment made them. I say neither can help\nit. But I say that both can be _taught_ to help it, and that _both_\nshould be taught to help it. Is there anything illogical in that?\n\nThis brings me to the Rev. Charles Marson, a very clever and witty man,\nwho is hopelessly muddled over the simple matter. In \"The Religious\nDoubts of Democracy,\" Mr. Marson says:\n\nNow, as reform starts by a feeling and conviction of blame, and cannot\nstart at all unless it can say: \"This is wrong. It might be right. This\nought not to be and is, and need not be\" so, if the answer is: \"But this\nwas as mathematically fixed at its birth as the path of a planet in\nits orbit,\" the poor reformed can only say, \"Sorry I spoke\"; and if\nhe speaks again it will be to laugh at the Clarion for wasting ink in\nblaming orbits which are mathematically fixed.\n\nIndeed, if I were a burglar, I would invest part of my swag in endowing\nDeterminists to pour arguments and ridicule upon Christian magistrates\nand criminal codes, with their active and irritating blame. Certainly,\nif I were Lord Rackrent, I should invite my anti-reform friends, the\nDeterminists, to dinner, take them to the opera, and send them round to\naddress the Socialists, at my expense.\n\nMr. Blatchford, being anxious to fight against the doctrine of sin,\nbuilds a fatalist rampart, looks over the top, and says: \"Can man sin\nagainst God? His actions are fixed.\" We walk round behind him and say:\n\"Can man sin against man? Can social systems sin against man?\" And the\nvery rampart of fatalism he has erected hinders him from escaping from a\nwithering fire, except by backing into obscurantism and ultra-Toryism.\n\nThis is the same error, differently stated. If man cannot be blamed,\nsociety cannot be blamed: therefore everything must remain as it is. I\noften wonder where the clergy learn their logic.\n\nMen cannot be blamed: society cannot be blamed. But both can be\n_altered_: by environment. That is to say, if heredity and environment\nhave endowed some man with reason and knowledge and inclination for the\ntask, that man may be able to improve society, or the individual, by\n_teaching_ one or both. And the teaching will be environment.\n\nWe cannot, as Mr. Marson pointed out in his article, \"blame\"\nenvironment; but we can attribute evils to the action of environment,\nand we can change the environment, always provided that heredity and\nenvironment have endowed us with the needful knowledge and brains for\nthe purpose.\n\nLet us look at the facts. There is a very terrible disease called\ndiphtheria. It is caused by a small fungoid bacillus, and it has killed\nmyriads of children, and caused much suffering and grief.\n\nDo we blame \"the vegetable bacillus\"? No. We cannot blame a bacillus.\n\nSo I say we cannot blame diphtheria for killing children. No sane person\never suggested blame in such a case. But do we take any the less trouble\nto fight against diphtheria?\n\nWe do not \"blame\" a rat for eating our chickens, nor a boat for\ncapsizing in a breeze, nor a lunatic for setting fire to a house, nor a\nshark for eating a sailor. But has any sane person ever suggested that\nwe should not try to keep rats out of the henhouse, nor to ballast a\nfaulty boat, nor restrain a madman from playing with fire, nor to rescue\na sailor from a shark?\n\nMr. Marson asks ironically whether a social system \"can be naughty,\"\nwhether a social system may be praised logically, blamed logically, and\nheld responsible logically.\n\nI reply that a social system cannot be logically \"blamed,\" any more than\na shark, a disease, a fool can be logically blamed. But a social system\nmay be approved or disapproved, and may be altered and abolished.\n\nWe cannot \"blame\" a man's environment, in the strict meaning of the\nword. But we may attribute a man's crime, or shame, or ruin to his\nenvironment.\n\nWe do not blame prussic acid for being lethal; but we do not allow\nchemists to sell it in large quantities to every casual stranger. _Why?_\nBecause it is _poison_.\n\nWell, the influenza bacillus is poison, falsehood is poison, vice is\npoison, greed and vanity and cruelty are poison; and it behooves us to\ndestroy those poisons, and so to improve our social system and the\nenvironment of our fellow-men.\n\nWe come now to the idea that to teach men that all blame is unjust is to\nencourage them to do wrong. This idea is expressed, with characteristic\nclumsiness and obscurity, by Bishop Butler, in that monument of loose\nthinking and foggy writing, \"The Analogy of Religion.\"\n\nWhat Butler wanted to say, and tried to say, in more than 800 words of\nhis irritating style, is simply that a child brought up to believe that\npraise and blame were unjust, would be a plague to all about him, and\nwould probably come to the gallows. The reader will find it in Chapter\nVI. of \"The Analogy.\"\n\nNow, I quite believe that if the matter had to be explained to a child\nby Bishop Butler the effect would be fatal, because the poor bishop did\nnot understand it himself, and was not good at explaining things he did\nunderstand. But the child would be in no danger if he were instructed\nby a man who knew what he was talking about, and was able to say what\nhe knew in plain words and clear sentences. And I can say from my\nexperience of children that I find them readier of apprehension, and\nclearer thinkers than I have found most clergymen.\n\nAs I have dealt with this argument in my chapter on self-control I need\nnot go over the ground again. But I may say that we should teach a child\nthat some things are right and some are wrong, and why they are right\nand why they are wrong; and that he was not to blame others because they\neither do not know any better, or are unable to do any better, and we\nshould teach him that one learns to be good as one learns to write or\nto swim, and that the harder one tries the better one succeeds. And\nwe should feel quite sure that the child would be just as good as\nhis heredity and our training made him; and as for his coming to the\ngallows, if _all_ children were taught on our system _there would be no\ngallows to come to_, and very few looking for that sacred instrument,\nthe sight of which convinced Gulliver that he was \"once more in a\nChristian country.\"\n\nIs it necessary for me to answer the charge of presumption brought\nagainst me by Dr. Aked? Dr. Aked says I am presumptuous because I\ndeny the belief of great and holy men of past ages. He says that the\nagreement of Cheyne and Perowne in praise of the fifty-first Psalm is\ntypical of the world's consensus of opinion. And this Psalm is the cry\nof a broken heart for deliverance from sin. Dr. Aked goes on as follows:\n\nTo-day we are asked to believe that all this is a delusion.\n\nWe are told that man could not and cannot sin against God. We are\ninvited to believe that the men of every age and nation whose hearts\nhave bled in sorrow over accomplished sin, who have cried in anguish\nof soul for deliverance from the body of this death, whose joy in the\nrealisation of divine forgiveness has flowed in strains of immortal joy\nover countless generations, were ignorant and foolish persons, inventing\ntheir sufferings and imagining their solace, and needing some journalist\nof the twentieth century to teach them that no man could really sin\nagainst God! We are, apparently, expected to believe that the author\nof this Psalm and the author of the \"second Isaiah,\" that Paul and\nAugustine, the author of \"Thomas A'Kempis,\" and John Bunyan, knew\nnothing of psychology and nothing of divinity, that they never\nunderstood their own experience, and, though they have interpreted\nhumanity to uncounted millions of the children of men, yet lived\nand died in crass ignorance of the workings of the human heart The\nproposition is not modest. That any man should be found, however\nflippantly, to advance it is marvellous. That any human being should be\nfound to accept it seriously is incredible.\n\nDr. Aked's argument amounts to a claim that we should believe in Free\nWill because most men believe in it, because many good and great men\nhave believed in it.\n\nBut many millions of men have believed in a material hell. In which\nDr. Aked does not believe. Many good and great men have believed in a\nmaterial hell, and millions of men (some of them good and clever) still\nbelieve in a material hell. And Dr. Aked does not believe in it.\n\nAnd when the doctrine of hell-fire was first assailed, what did the Dr.\nAkeds of the time declare? That without the fear of hell men would be\nwicked, and would do wrong in defiance of God; and that the theory that\nthere was no hell of fire was \"incredible.\" And what is this charge of\naudacity which Dr. Aked brings against me for denying sin? It is just\nthe charge that was brought against Charles Darwin when he had the\nimmodesty to declare that the human species was evolved from lower\nforms.\n\nHow was that theory met by the Dr. Akeds of the time? Darwin was\nridiculed and denounced, and nearly all the religious world was aghast\nat his folly and his irreverence, and his presumption in advancing a\ntheory which was contrary to the teachings of Holy Writ. But Darwin's\ntheory was _true_.\n\nDarwin's theory was true, and I claim that this theory is true. Is it\nany answer to tell me that I am presumptuous in opposing the beliefs\nof great men past and present? Darwin opposed the general belief,\nand Darwin was right and the general belief was wrong. Is it any more\nreasonable to condemn this theory for traversing the fifty-first Psalm\nthan it was to condemn Evolution for traversing the Book of Genesis?\n\nAre we never to deviate from the beliefs of our forefathers, be the\nevidence against those beliefs never so strong? How, then, shall\nknowledge increase or progress be possible?\n\nPresumptuous to deny what great men in the past believed? Then the world\nis flat, and the sun goes round the world, and polygamy is right, and\nSaturday is the Sabbath day, and all Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists,\nConfucians, and pagans will be damned, and the abolition of\nwitch-burning was a mistake, and Luther was presumptuous for resisting\nthe authority of the Church of Rome, and Dr. Aked is presumptuous for\ndiffering from the Church of England. In such absurdities does the\nclerical mind entangle itself when it tries to think.\n\nMr. Marson says that if he were a burglar he would spend some of the\nmoney he stole in paying lecturers to teach the doctrine that men ought\nnot to be blamed for their actions. But if all men were trained upon our\nprinciples there _would not be any burglars_.\n\nHowever, let us see what Mr. Marson means. He means that if punishment\nand blame were abolished burglars and other wrongdoers might go scot\nfree, and might rob, or kill, or cheat; and no one should say them nay.\nBut Mr. Marson is a clergyman, and does not understand.\n\nIt is a strange notion this, that if you do not blame a man you cannot\ninterfere with him. We do not blame a lunatic: even a Christian does not\nblame a lunatic. But we do not allow a madman to go round with an axe\nand murder people. We do not hang a madman, nor punish him in any way.\nIf a murderer is proved to be mad he is pardoned and--restrained.\n\nSo, although we might not blame a thief, or a sweater, or a poisoner, it\ndoes not follow that we should allow him to go on stealing, or sweating,\nor murdering.\n\nWe propose to defend society from the individual; but we propose to do\nmore than that: we propose to do what the Christian does not attempt to\ndo--we propose to defend the individual from society.\n\nThe Christian method of dealing with the burglar is to neglect him in\nhis childhood and his youth, to allow him to become a burglar, from\nsheer lack of opportunity to become anything else, and then to lecture\nhim and send him to prison.\n\nBut, my Christian friends, how do you find your system work? If you tell\nBill Sykes he is a bad man, that the angels will not love him, that the\nfat successful sweater or idler will loathe and despise him, and if you\nsend Bill to prison and hard labour for a term of years, will it always\nhappen that William will repent and reform, and become a building\nsociety or a joint-stock bank himself?\n\nOr do you find that poor Bill hardens his heart, and hates you; and that\nhe comes out of your shameful prison, and from your cowardly and savage\nwhips and chains, and burgles and drinks again, and learns to carry a\nrevolver?\n\nIf we want to get rid of evil we must remove the _cause_ of evil. It is\nuseless to punish the victim.\n\nIt is with moral evils as with physical evils. When an epidemic of fever\nor smallpox comes upon us we do not punish the sick, nor blame them.\nBut we isolate the sick, and we attack the _cause_ of the sickness, by\nattending to matters of hygiene and sanitation. That is how we ought to\ndeal with moral sickness.\n\nMen do not live badly because they are \"wicked,\" but because they are\nignorant. The remedy lies in the study and adoption of the laws of the\nscience of human life.\n\nIf we are to have a moral people we must first of all have a healthy\npeople. If the working classes are to be made sober and pure and wise,\nthe other classes must be made honest, and to be made honest they must\nbe taught what honesty is.\n\nBut the Christian cannot teach what honesty is because he does not\nknow. He cannot attack the causes of vice and crime, because he does not\nunderstand that vice and crime are caused. He has been taught that men\ndo wrong because they will not do right, and that they can do right if\nthey will.\n\nThe Christian blames the criminal, and punishes him, because the\nChristian believes that the criminal has a \"free will.\"\n\nBut we should not blame nor punish the criminal, because we know that\nhe is a victim of heredity and environment. So we should restrain the\ncriminal, and try to reform him; and we should attack the environment\nwhich made him a criminal, and is still making more criminals, and we\nshould try to alter that environment, and so prevent the making of more\ncriminals.\n\nFor the hardened criminal, restraint may be necessary. It may be\nimpossible to reform him. It may be too late.\n\nBut it is not too late to save millions of innocent children from a like\ndisaster and disgrace. It is not too late to prevent evil in the future,\nthough we cannot atone for the evil wrought in the past.\n\nWe know, and the Christian knows, that where a murderer destroys one\nlife society destroys thousands. We know that all through our pursy\ncivilisation, in all the fine cities of our wealth, our culture, and our\nboastful piety, the ruin of children, the production of monsters, the\ndesecration of human souls, is going steadily and ruthlessly on. We know\nthis, and the Christian knows this; but we propose to prevent it, to\nstop it, by striking at the root _cause_: the Christian hopes to check\nit by lopping off here and there one of the fruits.\n\nThat is one reason why I claim that Humanism is a better religion than\nChristianity; that is one reason why I claim that Christianity is a\nfailure.\n\nWhat is the cause of crime? The Christian does not know. What is the\ncause of ignorance? The Christian does not know. What is the cause of\npoverty? The Christian does not know.\n\nFor ages the Christians trusted to religion to rid them of pestilence.\nScience taught them to _prevent_ pestilence. Now they trust to religion\nto rid the world of vice and crime. It is the same old error. Science\nhas shown us the causes of vice and crime: science teaches us that we\nmust attack the causes.\n\nBut the world is very ignorant in affairs of moral sanitation; and has\nan almost religious veneration for the sacredness of Grand Ducal ducks.\n\nAs for the children--why do not their parents take care of them? Perhaps\nbecause the parents were neglected by _their_ parents.\n\nAnd which is the better, to go back for a dozen generations blaming\nparents, or to begin now and teach and save the children?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FIFTEEN--THE DEFENCE OF THE BOTTOM DOG\n\nFRIENDS, I write to defend the Bottom Dog. It is a task to stagger the\nstoutest heart. With nearly all the power, learning, and wealth of the\nworld against him; with all the precedents of human history against\nhim; with law, religion, custom, and public sentiment against him, the\nunfortunate victim's only hope is in the justice of his case. I would he\nhad a better advocate, as I trust he some day will.\n\nThe prosecution claim a monopoly of learning, and virtue, and modesty.\nThey may be justified in this. I do not grudge them such authority as\ntheir shining merits may lend to a case so unjust, so feeble, and so\ncruel as theirs.\n\nMany of the gentlemen on the other side are Christian ministers. They\nuphold blame and punishment, in direct defiance of the teaching and\nexample of Jesus Christ.\n\nThe founder of their religion bade them love their enemies. He taught\nthem that if one stole their coat they should give him their cloak also.\nHe prevented the punishment of the woman taken in adultery, and called\nupon him without sin to cast the first stone. He asked God to forgive\nhis murderers, because they knew not what they did. In not one of these\ncases did Christ say a word in favour of punishment nor of blame.\n\nChristians pray to be forgiven, as they forgive; they ask God to \"have\nmercy upon us miserable sinners\"; they ask Him to \"succour, help, and\ncomfort all that are in danger, necessity, and tribulation,\" and\nto \"show His pity upon all prisoners and captives\"; how, then, can\nChristians advocate the blame of the weak, and the punishment of the\npersecuted and unfortunate?\n\nI suggest that men who do not understand their own religion are not\nlikely to understand a religion to which they are opposed.\n\nAs I am generally known as a poor man's advocate, I ask you to remember\nthat I am not now appearing for the poor, but for the wrong-doer. There\nare many very poor who do no serious wrong; there are many amongst the\nrich, the successful, and the respectable, whose lives are evil.\n\nOne does not live half a century without knowing one's world pretty\nwell. I know the honourable and noble lord, full of gout, vainglory, and\nstealthy vices; I know the fashionable divine, with pride in his\nheart, milk on his lips, and cobwebs in his brain; I know the smug\nrespectability, with low cunning under his silk hat, and chicanery\nbuttoned up in his irreproachable frock coat; I know the fine lady,\nbeautiful as a poppy, who is haughty from sheer lack of sense; I know\nthe glib orator of mean acts and golden words; I know the elected person\nof much dignity and little wit,' and the woman of much loveliness and\nlittle love.\n\nI have to defend men and women whose deeds revolt me, whose presence\ndisgusts me. I have to defend them against the world, and against my own\nprejudices and aversion. For I also have a heredity and an environment,\nand therefore crochets, and passions, and antipathies. Though I can\ndefend all victims of heredity and environment, though I can demand\njustice for the worst, yet my nature loathes the bully and the tyrant,\nand still more does it loathe the mean: the man of the Judas spirit, who\nbarters children's lives, and women's souls, and the manhood of cities,\nfor dirty pieces of silver. Such a wretch is not to be hated, is not to\nbe punished: he is to be pitied and I am to defend him. But when I\nthink of him my soul is sick. I feel as if a worm had crawled over me.\nI cannot help this. I cannot endure him. I am not big enough: I lack\nthe grace. I pity him profoundly; but my pity is cold. I pity the\ndevil-fish, and the conger eel; but I could not touch them. They are\nrepulsive to me.\n\nIt is very difficult for us to separate the man from his acts. It is\nvery difficult for us to hate and to loathe the acts, without hating and\nloathing the man. This is the old, old Adam in us, rebelling against\nthe new altruism and the new reason. We are still a long way behind our\nideals.\n\nIt is no part of my plan to flatter the world. I know you, my brothers\nand sisters, too well for that. There is a strong family resemblance\nbetween us. Your ancestors, also, had tails. And then, like Thoreau,\n\"I know what mean and sneaking lives many of you lead.\" The majority of\nyou, indeed, are still little better than barbarians. The mass of you\nwaste your lives and starve your souls for the sake of beads and scalps,\nand flesh and firewater. Your heroes are, too, often, mere prowling\nappetites, or solemn vanities, ravenous for pudding and praise; mere\ntailor-made effigies, to stick stars upon, or feathers into; mere\npainted idols for ignorance to worship; embroidered serene-emptiness for\nflunkeys to bow down to: kings and things of shreds and patches.\n\nYes. We are all painfully human, and under a r\u00e9gime of blame and\npunishment may count ourselves extremely lucky if we have never been\nfound out.\n\nDo not let us stand in too great awe of our ancestors. They also\ntrafficked and junketted in Vanity Fair. The prosecution lay stress\nupon the universal custom and experience of mankind The world has never\nordered its life by rules of wisdom and understanding. It has paid more\ncourt to the rich than to the good, and more heed to the noisy than to\nthe wise. The world has imprisoned as many honest men as rogues, has\nslain more innocent than guilty, has decorated more criminals than\nheroes, has believed a thousand times less truth than lies. Is it not\nso, men and women? Does not common experience support the charge?\n\nLet us, then, understand each other, before we go any farther. The glory\nof manhood and womanhood is not to have something, but to be something;\nis not to get something, but to give something; is not to rule but to\nserve.\n\nThe greatness of a nation does not lie in its wealth and power, but in\nthe character of its men and women. With greatness in the people all the\nrest will follow, as surely as when the greatness of the people wanes\nthe rest will be quickly lost. The history of all great empires tells us\nthis: Japan is just now repeating the lesson.\n\nWhat is it most men strive for? Wealth and fame. These are prizes for\nlittle men, not for big men. They are prizes that often inflict untold\nmisery in the winning, and are nearly always a curse to the winner. Vice\nand crime are fostered by luxury and idleness on the one hand, and by\nignorance and misery on the other hand. The poor are poor that the rich\nmay be rich; and the riches and the poverty are a curse to both.\n\nConsider all the vain pride and barbaric pomp of wealth and fashion, and\nall the mean envy of the weakly snobs who revere them, and would sell\ntheir withered souls to possess them. Is this decorative tomfoolery, are\nthis apish swagger and blazoned snobbery worthy of _men_ and _women?_\n\nThe powdered flunkeys, the gingerbread coaches, the pantomime\nprocessions, the trumpery orders and fatuous titles: are they any nobler\nor more sensible than the paint, the tom-toms, and the Brummagen jewels\nof darkest Africa?\n\nAnd the cost! We are too prone to reckon cost in cash. We are too prone\nto forget that cash is but a symbol of things more precious. We bear too\ntamely all the bowing and kow-towing; all the fiddling and fifing, all\nthe starring and gartering, and be-feathering and begemming, all the\ngambling and racing, the saluting and fanfaring, the marching and\ncounter-marching, all the raking in of dividends, and building up of\nmansions, all the sweating and rackrenting, all the heartless vanity,\nand brainless luxury, and gilded vice: we should think of them more\nsternly did we count up what they cost in men and women and children,\nwhat they cost in brawn and brain, and honour and love, what they cost\nin human souls--what they cost in Bottom Dogs.\n\nHappiness cannot be stolen; nor won by cheating, as though life were a\ngame of cards. The man who would be happy must find his duty, and do it.\nIn no other way can man or woman find real happiness, under the sun.\nBut the world, so far has quite a different creed. And the common\nexperience, on which the Christians so much depend, is not on the side\nof the angels. And that is why the Bottom Dogs are so numerous, and why\nso many of us lead \"such mean and sneaking lives.\"\n\nDescendants of barbarians and beasts, we have not yet conquered the\ngreed and folly of our bestial and barbarous inheritance. Our nature is\nan unweeded garden. Our hereditary soil is rank. Talk about the trouble\nof bringing up children: what is that to the trouble of educating one's\nancestors? O, the difficulty I have had with mine.\n\nMy friends: you have read my statement of the case for the Bottom Dog;\nyou have read the arguments I have used in support of that statement:\nyou have read the evidence, and you have read my answers to the\narguments of the other side.\n\nI claim to have proved that all human actions are ruled by heredity\nand environment, that man is not responsible for his heredity and\nenvironment, and that therefore all blame and all punishment are unjust.\n\nI claim to have proved that blame and punishment, besides being unjust\nare ineffectual.\n\nI claim that the arguments which apply to heredity and environment apply\nalso to the soul, for since man did not create the soul he cannot be\nresponsible for its acts.\n\nI claim to have explained the so-called \"mysteries\" of conscience, and\nof the \"dual personality,\" and to have proved them to be the natural\naction of heredity and environment.\n\nI claim to have proved that morality comes through natural evolution,\nand not by any kind of super-natural revelation.\n\nI claim to have proved that the argument from universal experience is\nfallacious, and to have shown that universal experience has misled us in\nthe manner of human responsibility as in so many other matters.\n\nI claim to have proved that the theory here advocated is based upon\njustice and reason, and is more moral and beneficient than the Christian\nreligion, under which so much wrong, and waste, and misery continue to\nexist unchecked and unrebuked.\n\nI claim to have proved that the prosecution do not understand the case,\nand that their arguments are for the most part mere misrepresentations\nor misunderstandings of the issues and the facts.\n\nIt remains for me now to say a few words as to the wrongs suffered by my\nunfortunate client; and as to the necessity for so altering the laws and\ncustoms of society as to prevent the perpetration of all this cruelty\nand injustice; of all this waste of human love, and human beauty, and\nhuman power.\n\nWe are sometimes asked to think imperially: it would be better to think\nuniversally. Illimitable as is the universe, it appears in all its\nparts to obey the same laws. Its suns may be told by millions; but\nmatter and force compose and rule them all. Carlyle spoke of the\ncontrast between heaven and Vauxhall; but Vauxhall is in the heavens,\nby virtue of the same law that there holds Canopus and the Pleiades. We\nthink of the dawn-star as of something heavenly pure, and of the earth\nas grey in sorrow and sin; but the earth is a star--a planet, bright and\nbeautiful as Venus in a purple evening sky.\n\nWe gaze with wondering awe at the loveliness and mystery of the Galaxy,\nthat bent beam of glory whose motes are suns, that luminous path of\ndreams whose jewels are alive; but we forget that Whitechapel, and\nOldham, and Chicago, and the Black Country, are in the Milky Way. In\nthat awful ocean of Space are many islands; but they are all akin.\nIn the \"roaring loom of time.\" howsoever the colours may change, the\npattern vary, the piece is all one piece; it is knit together, thread to\nthread. All men are brothers. From the age beyond the Aryans the threads\nare woven and joined together. _All_ of us had ancestors with tails. All\nthe myriads of human creatures, since the first ape stood erect, have\nbeen like leaves upon one tree, nourished by the same sap, fed from the\nsame root, warmed by the same sun, washed by the same rains. All our\npolities, philosophies, and religions, grow out of each other. We\ncan never fully understand any one of them until we know the whole.\nComparative anatomy, comparative philology, comparative mythology, all\ncomparative sciences, tell us the same story of growth, of evolution, of\nkinship. Babylon and Egypt, India and Persia, Greece and Rome, Gothland\nand Scandinavia, Britain and Gaul; Osiris, Krishna, Confucius, Brahma,\nZoroaster, Buddha, Christ, Mahomet: all are parts of one whole, all\nparts related each to other. The oldest nations speak in our languages\nto-day, the oldest savages survive in our bodies, the oldest gods have\npart in our religious forms and ceremonies, the oldest superstitions and\nfaults and follies, still obscure our minds and impede our action. We\ncannot thrust the dead aside and stand alone: the dead are part of us.\nWe cannot take a man and isolate him, and judge and understand him,\nas though he were a new and special creation. He is of kin to all the\nliving and the dead. He stands one figure in the great human pageant,\nand cannot be taken out of the picture: cannot be cut out from the\nbackground--that background of a thousand ages, and of innumerable women\nand men. He belongs to the great human family: he, also, is in the Milky\nWay.\n\nOld families, and noble families are made of parchment or paper: there\nis but one real family of flesh and blood, and that reaches back to the\nclot of jelly in the sea, and we all belong to it.\n\nWhen I hear some little Brick Lane Brother talking about the true faith,\nas taught in a tin chapel in Upper Tooting, I think of the star-readers\nof the Aryan hills, of the dead gods, and the obliterated beliefs of\nancient conquerors, long since eaten by worms, and of the shrivelled\ncorpse in the museum who has lain grinning in his sandhole for thirty\nthousand years, amongst his grave pots, and ghost charms, and the\nuneaten food for the long journey to the great beyond. When I hear\nhonourable members prating in the House about \"Imperial questions,\" I\nthink of the famished seamstress, the unemployed docker, the girl with\nthe phossy jaw, whom the honourable gentleman \"represents.\" When I read\nof the gorgeous stage-management of the royal pageants, I remember the\ngraves of the Balaclava men, in the Manchester workhouse field, where\nthe sods were spread out level over the neglected dead. When I see\nbeautiful sculptures and paintings of Greek womanhood, I remember how,\ncoming out of the art gallery where I had been looking at the picture of\nAndromache, I saw a white-haired old Englishwoman carrying a great bag\nof cinders on her bent old back. When I hear the angelic voices of\nthe choirs, and see the golden plate on cathedral altars, I ask myself\nquestions about that Bridge of Sighs where London women drown themselves\nin their despair, and about that child in the workhouse school who tamed\na mouse because he must have something to love. When a callow preacher\nbabbles to his grown-up congregation about sin and human nature, I\nremember the men and women I have known: the soldiers, the navvies, the\ncolliers, the doctors, the lawyers, the authors, the artists; I remember\nthe dancing-rooms in the garrison town, and the girls, and how they were\nwomanly in their degradation, and sweet in spite of their shame; and I\nwondered what the reverend gentleman would answer them if they spoke to\nhim as they often spoke to me, in words that were straight as blades,\nand cut as deep.\n\nAnd often, when I mix with the crowds in the streets, or at the theatre,\nor in public assemblies, I feel that I am in the presence of the haunted\npast, and the whole human story unfolds itself to my mind: the primeval\nsavage with \"his fell of hair,\" fighting with other savages, under\n\"branching elm, star-proof\"; the Ethiopian warrior in his battle\nchariot; the bent slave, toiling on the pyramid; the armed knight\nerrant, foraying, and redressing sentimental wrongs; the fearless\nViking, crossing oceans in his open galley, to discover continents;\nthe gladiator in the Roman arena; the Greek Stoics, discoursing at\nthe fountain; Drake singeing the King of Spain's beard; St. Francis\npreaching to the birds; the Buddha, giving his body to the famished\ntigress; the Aryan at the plough, the Phoenician in his bark, the\nCalifornian seeking gold, the whaler amongst the ice, the ancient Briton\nin his woad--all the mysterious and fascinating human drama of love\nand hate, of hunger and riches, and laughter and tears, and songs and\nsobbings, and dancing and drunkenness, and marriage and battle, and\nheroism and cowardice, and murder and robbery, and the quest of God.\n\nThat wonderful human mystery-play, how softly it touches us, how deeply\nit moves us, with its hum of myriad voices, its vision of white arms,\nand flashing weapons, and beckoning fingers, and asking looks, and the\nripple of its laughter, like the music of hidden streams in leafy woods,\nand the lisp of its unnumbered feet, and the weird rhythm of its war\nsongs, and the pathos of its joy-bells, and the pity of its follies, and\nits failures, and its crimes--the pity; \"the pity of it, the pity\nof it.\"\n\nPossessed, then by this dreaming habit, this Janus-like bent of mind,\nI cannot think of the Bottom Dog apart from the whole bloodstained,\ntearstained tragedy of man's inhumanity to man. For the Bottom Dog is a\nchild of all the ages, he plays his part in a drama whereof the scene\nis laid in the Milky Way. He recalls to us the long wavering war between\ndarkness and light, the life and death struggle of the brute to be a\nman, the painful never-ceasing effort of man to understand.\n\nWe cannot look back over that trampled and sanguinary field of\nhistory without a shudder; but we must look. It reaches back into the\nimpenetrable mists of time, it reaches forward to our own thresholds,\nwhich still are wet with blood and tears, and on every rood of it,\nin ghastly horror, are heaped the corpses of the men, and women, and\nchildren slain by the righteous, in the name of justice, and in the\nname of God. Though the gods perished, though the vane of justice veered\nuntil right became wrong, and wrong right, yet the crimes continued, the\nhorrible mistakes were repeated; the holy, and the noble, and cultivated\nstill cried for their brother's blood, still trampled the infants under\ntheir holy feet, still forced the maidens and the mothers to slavery and\nshame.\n\nMen and women, is it not true?\n\nFrom fear of ghosts and devils, and for the glory of the gods of India,\nof Babylon, of Egypt, of Greece, of Rome, of France, of Spain, of\nEngland, were not millions tortured, and burnt, and whipped, and hanged,\nand crucified?\n\nWitchcraft, and heresy, idolatry, sacrifice, propitiation, divine\nvengeance; what seas of blood, what holocausts of crime, what long-drawn\ntragedies of agony and Moody sweat do these names not recall? And they\nwere all mistakes! They were all nightmares, born of ignorance and\nsuperstition! We have awakened from those nightmares. Our gods no longer\nlust after human blood. We know that heresy is merely difference of\neducation, that there never was a witch; we know that all those millions\nwept and bled and died for nothing: that they were tortured, enslaved,\ndegraded and murdered, by the holy, through ignorance, and fear, and\nsuperstition.\n\nIf we turn from the crimes and blunders of prophets and of priests to\nthe laws of Kings and Parliaments, we find the same ignorance, the same\nferocity, the same futility. I could fill a bigger book than mine with\nthe mere catalogue of the punishments and the instruments of torture\ninvented by tyrants, and land-grabbers, and superior persons for the\nprotection of their privileges, and their plunder, and their luxury and\nease. For thousands of years the whip, the chain, the rack, the gibbet,\nand the sword, have been used to uphold the laws made by robbers, and\nby idlers, and by ambitious lunatics., to punish the \"crimes\" of the\nignorant and the weak.\n\nMen and women, is it not true?\n\nAnd all the agony and blood and shame were ineffectual. And always blame\nand punishment bred hate, and savagery, and more crime.\n\n\"But it is different to-day.\"\n\nIt is the same to-day. The laws to-day are defences of the foolish rich\nagainst the ignorant and hungry poor. The laws to-day, like the laws of\nthe past, make more criminals than they punish. The laws keep the people\nignorant and poor, and the rich idle and vicious. The laws to-day, as\nin the day of Isaiah, enable the rich to \"add field to field, until\nthe people have no room.\" The laws to-day sacrifice a thousand innocent\nchildren to preserve one useful, lazy, unhappy, superior person. The\nlaws to-day punish as a criminal the child who steals a loaf, or a pair\nof boots, and honour as a grandee the man whose greed and folly keep the\nworkers off the land, and treble the rents in the filthy and indecent\nslums where age has no reverence, and toil no ease, and where shame has\nlaid its hand upon the girl child's breast.\n\nWhat was the old denunciation of those who cried \"peace, peace, when\nthere is no peace,\" and what shall we say of those priests and holy men\nwho cry \"morality, morality,\" where there is no morality, where usury\nand exploitation are honoured arts: where crime and vice are taught to\nthe children as in a school?\n\nIf you sow tares, can you reap wheat? If you sow hate can you reap love?\nIf you sow wrong can you reap right? If you teach and practise knavery,\ncan you ask for purity and virtue?\n\nThe laws were made by ignorant and dishonest men, they are administered\nby men ignorant and selfish; they are dishonest laws; good for neither\nrich nor poor; evil in their conception, evil in their enforcement, evil\nin their results.\n\nThere need not be any such things as poverty and ignorance in the world.\nThe earth is bounteous, and yields enough, and more than enough, for\nall.\n\nMen and women: I beg of you to do all that is in your power to change\nthe unjust laws, and the uncharitable and unreasonable opinions, which\nmake the deadly environment that fosters vice and crime.\n\nFor, besides that the laws are unjust, that the teachings of our\nsuperior persons are untrue, that blame and punishment must fail as they\nhave always failed, there is the awful _waste_--the waste of life, and\nlove, of beauty and power that the present cruel system entails.\n\nThink of the loveliness of a good woman, the blessing of her; think\nof the sweetness and the joy of an innocent child, of the value and\nnobility of an honest man. Picture to yourself the kind of woman you\nwould wish your daughter to be, the kind of man you would wish your son\nto be. Then remember what good or bad environment can make of the young.\n\nI tell you there is hardly a battered drab, a broken pauper, a hardened\nthief, a hopeless drunkard, a lurking tramp, a hooligan, but who might\nhave been an honest and a useful citizen under fair conditions.\n\nGood women: if ever you felt the thrill of a dear child's fingers on\nyour throat or breast, think what millions of such children in our\ncities must become.\n\nGood men: if you honour womanhood, if you love your daughters and your\nwives, think of the women and the girls in the streets, in the fields,\nin the factories, and in the jails, and then look into your mirrors for\na friend to save them.\n\nMen and women: as the little children are now the ruffian and the harlot\nonce were; as the ruffian and the harlot are now millions of helpless\nchildren must become unless you give them sympathy and aid.\n\nIt is no use looking for help to heaven: we must look upon the earth. It\nis no use asking God to help us: we must help ourselves.\n\nMy friends: for the sake of good men, who are better than their gods;\nfor the sake of good women, who are the pride and glory of the world;\nfor the sake of the dear children, who are sweeter to us than the\nsunshine or the flowers; for the sake of the generation not yet spoiled\nor lost; for the sake of the nations yet unborn; in the names of\njustice, of reason and truth, I ask you for a verdict of Not Guilty.","title":"Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":66209}