Notthe least curious aspect of the Free-Will controversy is that those who oppose Determinism base a large part of their argumentation upon the supposed evil consequences that will follow its acceptance. In a work from which I have already cited, Mr. F. C. S. Schiller falls foul of Determinism because, he says, while incompatible with morality, its champions nevertheless imagine they are leaving morality undisturbed. The real difficulty of Determinism is, he says, that in its world, events being fully determined, there can be no alternatives. Things are what they must be. They must be because they are. No man can help doing what he does. Man himself belongs to a sequence unending and unbroken. "To imagine therefore that Determinism, after annihilating the moral agent, remains compatible with morality, simply means that the logical implications of the doctrine have never been fully explored." And he adds: "The charge against it is not merely that it fails to do full justice to the ethical fact of responsibility, but that it utterly annihilates the moral agent." This, he says, is the real dilemma, and Determinism has never answered it.
It is curious that so clever a writer as Mr. Schillershould fail to realize that taking Determinism in its most drastic form, and accepting it in the most unequivocal manner, nothing can suffer, because everything remains as it must be—including the facts, feelings, and consequences of the moral life. Observe, it is part of Mr. Schiller's case against Determinism that on determinist lines everything, down to the minutest happenings, is the necessary result of all antecedent and co-operating conditions. But this being the case, if Determinism leaves no room for chance or absolute origination, how comes it that an acceptance of Determinism initiates an absolutely new thing—the destruction of morality? Surely it is coming very near the absurd to charge Determinism with breaking an unbreakable sequence. It is surely idle to credit Determinism with doing what is impossible for it to accomplish. So far as morality is a real thing, so far as the facts of the moral life are real things, Determinism must leave them substantially unaltered. The problem is, as has been already said, to find out for what exactly all these things stand. To read wrong meanings into the facts of life, and then to declare that the facts cease to exist if the meanings are corrected, is unphilosophical petulance.
It is, indeed, quite open to the Determinist to meet these grave fears as to the consequences of Determinism with a denial that morality is vitally concerned with the question of whether man's "will" be "free" or not. The question of Determinism may enter into the subject of how to develop character along desirable lines; and, apart from Determinism, it is difficult to see how there canbe anything like a scientific cultivation of character. But the fact of morality and the value of morality are not bound up with whether conduct be the expression of theoretically calculable factors, or whether it is, on the one side, determined by a self which originates its own impulses. Determinism or no Determinism, murder, to take an extreme illustration, is never likely to become an every-day occupation in human society. Neither can any other action that is obviously injurious to the well-being of society be practised beyond certain well-defined limits. The laws of social health operate to check socially injurious actions, as the laws of individual health operate to check injurious conduct in dietary or in hygiene. Determinists and Indeterminists, as may easily be observed, manifest a fairly uniform measure of conduct, and whatever variations from the normal standard each displays cannot well be put down to their acceptance or rejection of Determinism.
The real nature of morality is best seen if one asks oneself the question, "What is morality?" Let us imagine the human race reduced to a single individual. What would then be the scope and character of morality? It is without question that a large part of our moral rules would lose all meaning. Theft, murder, unchastity, slander, etc., would be without meanings, for the simple reason that there would be none against whom such offences could be committed. Would there be any moral laws or moral feelings left? Would there even be a man left under such conditions? One might safely query both statements. For if we take awayfrom this solitary individual all that social culture and intercourse have given him—language, knowledge, habits both mental and moral, all, in short, that has been developed through the agency of the social medium—man, as we know him, disappears, and a mere animal is left in his place. Even the feeling that a man has a duty to himself, and that to realize his highest possibilities is the most imperative of moral obligations, is only an illustration of the same truth. For very little analysis serves to show that even this derives its value from the significance of the individual to the social structure.
Morality, then, is wholly a question of relationship. Not whether my actions spring from a self-determined "will" or even whether they are the inevitable consequent of preceding conditions makes them moral or immoral, but their influence in forwarding or retarding certain ideal social relations. The rightness or wrongness of an action lies in its consequences. Whether one is of the Utilitarian or other school of morals does not substantially affect the truth of this statement. Action without consequences—assuming its possibility—would have no moral significance whatever. And consequences remain whether we accept or reject Determinism. Determinism cannot alter or regulate the consequences of actions, it can only indicate their causes and their results. What a science of morals is really concerned with is, objectively, the consequences of actions, and subjectively the feelings that lead to their performance. When a science of morals has determined what actions best promote desirable relations between human beings, and whatstates of mind are most favourable to the performance of such actions, its task as a science of morals is concluded. The genesis of such states of mind belongs to psychology, just as to sociology belong the creation and maintenance of such social conditions as will best give them expression and actuality.
The question of the moral consequences of Determinism is not, therefore, discussed because we believe there is any relevancy in the issue thus raised, but solely because it is raised, and not to deal with it may create a prejudice against Determinism. Many of those who quite admit the scientific character of Determinism, yet insist on the necessity for some sort of Indeterminism in the region of morals. Professor William James, for instance, admits that a profitable study of mental phenomena is impossible unless we postulate Determinism (Prin. Psych.ii. 573). But having admitted this, and in fact illustrated it through the whole of his two volumes, his next endeavour is to find a place for "free-will" as a "moral postulate." The region of morals is thus made to play the part of a haven of refuge for illegitimate and unscientific theories, a kind of workhouse for all mental vagrants found at large without visible means of support. The moral postulate which is to reinstate "Free-Will," is that "What ought to be can be, and that bad acts cannot be fated, but that good ones must be possible in their place." In a writer usually so clear this somewhat ambiguous deliverance is far more indicative of a desire to befriend an oppressed theory than of the possession of any good evidence in its behalf.
The matter really turns upon what is meant by "ought" and "possible." It has already been pointed out that if by "possible" it is meant that although one thing actually occurs, another thing—a different thing—might have occurred without any alteration in the accompanying conditions, the statement is not only untrue in fact, but it is inconceivable as possibly true. And if it does not mean this, then Professor James is merely stating what every Determinist most cheerfully endorses. But in that case the "possibility" gives no support whatever to the Indeterminist. Further, Professor James says that Determinism is a clear and seductive conception so long as one "stands by the great scientific postulate that the world must be one unbroken fact, and that prediction of all things without exception must be ideally, even if not actually, possible." On which one may enquire, how prediction could be at all possible unless, given the co-operating conditions, a definite and particular result is inevitable? But if prediction be possible—and the whole power of science lies in its power of prediction—what becomes of the value of "possibility" to the Indeterminist? Is it any more than an expression of our ignorance of the power of particular factors, and a consequent ignorance of their resultant?
To say that certain things "ought" to be, or that one "ought" to act in this or that particular manner, are common expressions, and within limits, relevant and intelligible expressions. But "ought" here clearly stands for no more than ideal conception. Its reference is to the future,not to the past. It does not imply a belief that things could have resulted other than those which actually did result, but a belief that given a suitable alteration in the conditions different results might ensue in the future. When, for example, I say that men ought to think wisely, I do not affirm either that all men do think wisely, or that foolish men can do so without some change in their mental make-up. I merely eliminate all those conditions that make for unwise thinking, leaving wise thinking as the only possible result. That is, recognizing that from different conditions different consequences will follow, in imagination, all forces that are inimical to the ideal end are eliminated. We say that no man ought to commit murder, and yet if we take as an illustration the congenital homicide, no one can assert that in his case, at least, anything but murder is possible, given favourable conditions for its perpetration. Or if it is said that congenital homicide is a purely pathological case, it may surely be asserted that the same general considerations apply to cases that are not classified as pathological. The more we know of the criminal's heredity, environment, and education, the more clearly it is seen that his deeds result from the inter-action of these factors, and that these must be modified if we are reasonably to expect any alteration in his conduct. In fact, the criminal—or the saint—being what he is as the result of the inter-action of possibly calculable factors is the essential condition towards making "the prediction of all things" ideally, if not actually possible. In saying, then, that a manought not to do wrong, we are only saying that our ideal of a perfect man eliminates the idea of wrong-doing, and that our imagination is powerful enough to construct a human character to which wrong-doing shall be alien.
The fallacy here is due to a confusion of the actual with the desirable. If we are looking to the past we are bound to say that "ought" is meaningless, because what has been is the only thing that could have been. Thus it is meaningless to say that a piece of string capable of withstanding a strain of half a hundredweight ought to have withstood a strain of half a ton. It is equally absurd to say that a man ought to have withstood the germ of malarial fever, when his constitution rendered him susceptible to attack. Both of these instances will be readily admitted. Is it, then, any more reasonable to say that a man ought to have withstood a temptation to drunkenness, or theft, or cruelty—in the sense that given his nature hecouldhave withstood it—when all the circumstances of character, heredity, and environment made for his downfall? We say that certain considerations "ought" to have restrained Jones because they were enough to restrain Smith. Are we, then, to conclude that Smith and Jones are so much alike—are, in fact, identical in character—that the same forces will influence each in the same manner and to the same degree? The assumption is obviously absurd. What ought to have happened with Smith and Jones, bearing in mind all the conditions of the problem, is what did happen. What ought to happen to Smith and Jonesin the future will be equally dependent upon the extent to which the character of the two becomes modified. In this sense our conception of what "ought" to be in the future will guide us as to the nature of the influences we bring to bear upon Smith and Jones. We believe that good actions may be possible in the future where bad ones occurred in the past, because we see that a change of conditions may produce the desired result. The "moral postulate," therefore, does not contain anything, or imply anything, in favour of Indeterminism. It does assert that certain things ought to be, but it can only realize this by recognizing, and acting upon the recognition, that just as certain forces in the past have issued in certain results, so a modification in the nature or incidence of these forces will produce a corresponding modification of conduct in the future. Whatever else there appears to be in the "ought" is a mere trick of the imagination; and the surprising thing is that a writer of the calibre of Professor James should not have been perfectly alive to this.
A cruder form of the same position, although introducing other issues, was upheld by Dr. Martineau in the categorical statement, "either free-will is a fact, or moral judgment a delusion." His reason for this remarkable statement is:—
"We could never condemn one turn of act or thought did we not believe the agent to have command of another; and just in proportion as we perceive, in his temperament or education or circumstances, the certain preponderance ofparticular suggestions, and the near approach to an inner necessity, do we criticize him rather as a natural object than as a responsible being, and deal with his aberrations as maladies instead of sins."[5]
"We could never condemn one turn of act or thought did we not believe the agent to have command of another; and just in proportion as we perceive, in his temperament or education or circumstances, the certain preponderance ofparticular suggestions, and the near approach to an inner necessity, do we criticize him rather as a natural object than as a responsible being, and deal with his aberrations as maladies instead of sins."[5]
Well, human nature might easily have been nearer perfection than it is had moral aberrations been treated as maladies rather than sins, and one certainly would not have felt greater regret had judges and critics always been capable of rising to this level of judgment. Social, political, and religious malevolence might not have received the gratification and support it has received had this been the rule of judgment and the guide to methods of treatment, but our social consciousness would have been of a superior texture than is now the case. And one may ask whether there is any human action conceivable for which an adequate cause cannot be found in temperament or education or circumstances, or in a combination of the three? It would tax any one's ingenuity to name an action that lies outside the scope of these influences. Temperament, education, circumstances, are the great and controlling conditions of human action, and only in proportion as this is recognized and acted upon do we approach a science of human nature and begin to realize methods of profitable modification.
Against Determinism Dr. Martineau argues that "the moral life dwells exclusively in the voluntarysphere," and also that "impulses of spontaneous action do not constitute character." The first of these statements is at least very debatable, although it may turn upon a matter of definition. But the second statement is distinctly inaccurate. One may assert the exact opposite, and instead of saying that the impulses of spontaneous action do not constitute character, argue that they are the truest indications of character. Of course, from one point of view, all that a man does, whether it be spontaneous or reflective, must be equally the expression of the whole man. But from another point of view the more permanent and enduring characteristics of a man may be overborne by a passing flood of emotion or by a casual combination of unusual circumstances. By these means an habitually mean man may be roused to acts of generosity, an habitual thief roused to acts of honesty. Long reflection may cause a person to decide this or that, when his spontaneous impulses are in the contrary direction. And while these reflections and floods of emotion are equally with the spontaneous impulses part of a given personality, yet it will hardly be disputed that the latter are the more deeply seated, will express themselves in a more uniform manner, and are thus a truer and more reliable index to the character of the person with whom we are dealing.
How far we are to accept morality as dwelling exclusively in the voluntary, that is the intentional, sphere, is, as I have said, largely a matter of definition. We may so define morality that it shall cover only intentional acts, in which case the statement must be accepted, or we can define morality in a wider sense, as covering all action by means of which desirable relations between people are maintained, in which case the statement is not true. For we should then be committed to the curious position that all moral development tends to make man less moral. To have the quality of voluntariness an act must be consciously performed with a particular end in view. But a large part of the more important functions of life do not come under this category, while a still larger portion are only semi-voluntary. The whole set of instincts that cluster round the family, the feelings which urge human beings to seek others' society, and which are the essential conditions of all social phenomena, do not properly come under the head of volition. Our conduct in any of these directions may easily be justified by reason, but it would be absurd to argue that there is any intentional choice involved.
Moreover, the chief aim of education, of the moralization of character, is to divest actions of their quality of reflectiveness or intention. Our aim here is so to fashion character that it will unquestioningly and instinctively place itself on the right side. This is a force that operates on all individuals more or less, and from the cradle to the grave. Family influences curb and fashion the egotism of the child until there is an unconscious and often unreasoning adherence to the family circle. Social influences continue the work and train the individual into an instinctive harmony, more or less complete with the structure of the society to which he belongs. The mere repetitionof a particular action involves the formation of a habit, and habit is meaningless in the absence of a modified nerve structure which reacts in a special manner. Persistence in right action, therefore, no matter how consciously it may be performed in its initial stages, inevitably passes over into unconscious or instinctive action. And let it be noted, too, that it is only when this change has been brought about that a person can be said to be a thoroughly moralized character. It is not the man who does right after a long internal struggle that is most moral, but the one with whom doing right is the most imperative of organic necessities. We praise the man who does right after struggle, but chiefly because of our admiration at the triumph of right over wrong, or because his weakness cries for support, or because he has in him the making of a more perfect character. But to place him as the superior of one whose right doing is the efflorescence of his whole nature is to misunderstand the ethical problem. And equally to confine morality to merely voluntary or intentional action is to truncate the sphere of morals to an extent that would meet with the approval of very few writers on ethics. In brief, one may not merely say with Lessing, "Determinism has nothing to fear from the side of morals," one may add that it is only on the theory of Determinism that the moralization of character becomes a rational possibility.
Wehave seen in what has gone before how much of the case for Free-Will is based upon the wrong use of language, and upon a display of petulance arising from the degree to which it is assumed that the universe ought to fulfil certaina prioriexpectations. In this last respect the Volitionist behaves as if he were on a kind of shopping excursion, with full liberty to purchase or reject the goods brought out for inspection. Both of these points are well illustrated in an apology for Indeterminism offered by Professor William James, and although in examining his argument it may be necessary to repeat in substance some of the arguments already used, this will not be without its value in enabling the reader to realize the shifts to which the defender of Free-Will is compelled to resort. In justice to Professor James, however, it is only fair to point out that it is not quite clear that he is thoroughly convinced of the position he sees fit to state. Much of his argument reads as though he were merely stating a speculation that might prove valuable, but which might also turn out valueless. Still, whatever conviction he has, or had, appears to lean to the side of Indeterminism, and I shall accordingly deal with his argument as though he were quite convinced of its soundness.
In his chief work,The Principles of Psychology, Professor James took up the perfectly sane position that a man would be foolish not to espouse "the great scientific postulate" that the prediction of all things without exception must be possible, and drew a proper distinction between what is ideally possible—that is to complete knowledge—and what is actually possible to incomplete knowledge. In a later deliverance he, for the time at least, forsakes this position and champions a case which rests for its coherence very largely upon the neglect of those precautions previously insisted on.[6]To suit the necessities of the argument the Determinist is made to say things that I think few, if any, determinists ever dreamed of saying, while certain leading words are used with a meaning obviously framed to meet the requirements of the case.
At the outset of his essay Professor James remarks that if a certain formula—in this case the Determinist formula—"for expressing the nature of the world violates my moral demands, I shall feel as free to throw it overboard, or at least to doubt it, as if it disappointed my demand for uniformity of sequence." And he proceeds to argue that all our scientific "laws" are ideal constructions, built up in order to satisfy certain demands of our nature. Uniformity in nature is thus as much a formula framed to this end as is Free-Will. "If this be admitted," he says, "we can debate on even terms."
Unfortunately for the Professor's argument the two instances are not analogous—not, at least, in the direction required. The sense of causality is not something that is innate in human nature. Children at an early age hardly possess it, and primitive man has it in only a very vague manner. The conviction that all things are bound together in terms of causation is one that belongs, even to-day, to the educated, thoughtful mind. At any rate it is a conviction that has been forced upon the human mind by the sheer pressure of experience. It is a growth consequent upon the mind's intercourse with the objective universe. And its validity is not called into question. On the other hand, this assumed "moral demand" for "Free-Will" is the very point in dispute. Whether there is such a demand, and if so is it a legitimate one, are the questions upon which the discussion turns. And it will not do for Professor James to claim Free-Will in the name of certain "moral demands" and reserve the right to throw overboard any theory that does not grant them. Man's moral nature, equally with his intellectual nature, must in the last resort yield to facts. It will not do to exalt into a moral instinct what may be no more than a personal idiosyncrasy. There is certainly no more than this in such expressions as "something must be fatally unreasonable, absurd, and wrong in the world," or "I deliberately refuse to keep on terms of loyalty with the universe," if certain things turn out to be true. Such phrases are completely out of place in a scientific enquiry. The universe will remain what it is whether we call it absurd or rational,and may even survive the raising of the standard of revolt by so eminent a psychologist as Professor James, to whom we would commend, were he still alive, Schopenhauer's profound remark that there are no moral phenomena, only moral interpretations of phenomena.
What, now, is the insuperable dilemma which Professor James places before upholders of Determinism? The whole of it turns out to be little more than a play upon the words "possible" and "actual." Determinism, he says, professes that "those parts of the universe already laid down absolutely appoint and decree (Why 'appoint' and 'decree'? Why not the impersonal word 'determine?') what the other parts shall be." The future is determined by the past; and given the past, only one future is possible. Indeterminism says that "the parts have a certain amount of loose play on one another, so that the laying down of one of them does not necessarily determine what the others shall be." Thus, still following Professor James's exposition, given a special instance, both sides admit the occurrence of a volition. The Determinist asserts that no other volition could have occurred. The Indeterminist asserts that another volition might have occurred, other things remaining the same. And, asks the Professor, can science tell us which is correct? His reply is, No. "How can any amount of assurance that something actually happened give us the least grain of information as to whether another thing might or might not have happened in its place? Only facts can be proved by other facts. With things that arepossibilities and not facts, facts have no concern."
The position may be made clearer by taking the Professor's own illustration. When, he says, I leave this lecture hall I may go homeviaDivinity Avenue, or traverse Oxford Street. It is a matter of chance which route is selected. But assume that by some miracle, after having walked down Divinity Avenue, ten minutes of time are annihilated, and reaching the Hall door again Oxford Street is the route selected. Spectators thus have two alternative universes. One universe with the Professor walking through Divinity Avenue, the other with him walking through Oxford Street. If the spectators are Determinists they will believe only one universe to have been from eternity possible. But, asks Professor James, looking outwardly at these two universes, can anyone say which is the accidental and which is the necessary one? "In other words, either universeafter the factand once there would, to our means of observation and understanding, appear just as rational as the other." There is no means by which we can distinguish chance from a rational necessity. A universe which allows a certain loose play of the parts is as rational as one which submits to the most rigid determinism.
Before dealing with the above, it is necessary to take another phrase on which much of the above argument depends. Professor James says that the stronghold of the Determinist sentiment is antipathy to the idea of "Chance," and chance is a notion not to be entertained by any sane mind. And the sting, he says, seems to rest on theassumption that chance is something positive, and if a thing happens by chance it must needs be irrational and preposterous. But I am not aware that any scientific Determinist ever used "chance" as being a positive term at all. Certainly the last thing the present writer would dream of doing would be to predicate chance of any portion of the objective universe whatsoever. The only legitimate use of the word is in reference tothe state of our knowledge concerning phenomena. To say that a thing chanced, or happened by chance, is only saying that we are not aware of the causes that produced it. We say nothing of the thing itself, we only express the state of our mind in relation to it.
Professor James says all you mean by "chance" is that a thing is not guaranteed, it may fall out otherwise. Not guaranteed by our knowledge about the thing, certainly; in any other sense, his definition seems invented for the express purpose of bolstering up his hypothesis. For, he says, a chance thing means that the general system of things has no hold on it. It appears in relation to other things, but it escapes their determining influence, and appears as "a free gift." Thus whether he walked down Divinity Avenue or Oxford Street was a matter of chance; and the future of the world is full of similar chances—events that may take one of several forms, either of which is consistent with the whole.
We now have the essence of Professor James's case, and can consider it in detail. First of all we may note the curiously double sense in whichProfessor James uses the word "fact" and the agility with which he skips from one meaning to another, as it suits his argument. In a broad and general sense a mental fact is as much a fact as any other fact. A man riding on horseback is a fact. My vision or conception of a horse with the head of a man is equally a fact, though nothing like it exists in nature. We should discriminate between the two by saying that one is a mental fact strictly relative to a particular mind, the other is an objective fact relative to all minds normally constituted. Now science does not deny possibilities asmental facts. But it would be a very queer science indeed that allowed all sorts of possibilities of a given group of phenomenaunder identical conditions. Like "chance," the possibilities of the Universe are strictly relative to our knowledge concerning it. If opposite things appear equally possible, it is only because we are not sufficiently conversant with the processes to say which thing is certain. A universe with Professor James walking down Divinity Avenue appears as orderly and as natural as one with him parading Oxford Street. But this is because we cannot unravel the complex conditions that may determine the selection of one route or the other. Or if it be said in reply, that the walker is unaware of any choice in the matter, the answer is that there is present the desire to get away from the lecture hall and arrive at home, and this is strong enough to make the choice of means to that end unimportant. If the choice lay between walking down a sunlit street or wading through a mile of water, five feet deep, while thelatter would still remain a possibility, since it could be done were the inducement to do it strong enough, there is not much doubt as to what the choice would actually be.
The complete reply therefore to Professor James's illustration is that from the standpoint of mere possibility, bearing in mind the proper significance of possibility, opposite alternatives may be equally real. We can, that is, conceive conditions under which a certain thing may occur, and we can conceive another set of conditions under which exactly the opposite may occur. And either alternative presents us with a universe that is equally "rational," because in either case we vary the co-operating conditions in order to produce the imagined consequence. But given a complete knowledge of all the co-operating conditions, and not only do two views of the universe cease to be equally rational, but one of them ceases to be even conceivable. For let us note that the resultant of any calculation is no more and no less than a synthesis of the factors that are included in the calculation. If we do not understand the factors included in a given synthesis it will be a matter of "chance" what the resultant may be. But if we do understand the nature of the factors, and the consequence of their synthesis, possibility and actuality become convertible terms. Finally, whether a man on leaving a lecture hall turns to the right or the left appears, under ordinary conditions, equally rational and natural only because we are aware that it may be a matter of indifference which direction he takes, and in that case his actionwill be governed by the simple desire to get away, or to get to a particular spot. It is a simple deduction from experience presented by Professor James in a needlessly confusing manner.
The next, and practically the only example cited by Professor James to prove that this world is a world of "chances," is concerned with a question of morals. We constantly, he says, have occasion to make "judgments of regret." In illustration of this, he cites the case of a particularly brutal murder, and adds, "We feel that, although a perfect mechanical fit to the rest of the universe, it is a bad moral fit, and that something else would really have been better in its place." But "calling a thing bad means, if it means anything at all, that the thing ought not to be, that something else ought to be in its stead." If Determinism denies this it is defining the universe as a place "in which what ought to be is impossible," and this lands us in pessimism, or if we are to escape pessimism we can only do so by abandoning the judgment of regret. But if our regrets are necessitated nothing else can be in their place, and the universe is what it was before—a place in which what ought to be appears impossible. Murder and treachery cannot be good without regret being bad, regret cannot be good without murder and treachery being bad. As both, however, are foredoomed, something must be fatally wrong and absurd in the world.
Now, I must confess all this seems a deal of bother concerning a fairly simple matter. Indeed, Professor James seems to be engaged in raising a dust and then complaining of the murkiness of theatmosphere. Coming from a writer of less standing I might, in view of what has been said elsewhere in this essay, have left the reply to the careful reader's understanding of the subject. But from so eminent a psychologist as William James, silence might well be construed as deterministic inability to reply to the position laid down.
In the first place, I may be pardoned for again reminding the reader that, in this connection, "ought" stands upon precisely the same level as "possible." Whether we say that a man ought to do a certain thing, or that it is possible for him to do a certain thing, we are making identical statements, for no one would dream of saying that a man ought to do that which it is impossible for him to perform. When we say that murder and treachery ought not to be, we do not imply—if we use language properly—that these are not as much part of the cosmic order, and as much the expression of co-operating conditions, as are kindness and loyalty. It is saying no more than that in our judgment human nature may be so trained and conditioned as to practise neither murder nor treachery. We are expressing a judgment as to what our ideal of human nature is, and our ideal of what human nature should be is based upon what experience has taught us concerning its possibilities. Man's "judgment of regret" is justifiable and admirable, not because he recognizes that the past could have been different from what it was, but because it furnishes him with the requisite experience for a better direction of action in the future, and because the feeling of regret is itselfone of the determining conditions that will decide conduct in the future.
"The question," says Professor James, "is of things, not of eulogistic names for them." With this I cordially agree; but in that case what are we to make of the following:—
"The only consistent way of representing ... a world whose parts may affect one another through their conduct being either good or bad is the indeterminate way. What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way—nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good or bad. I cannot understand the belief that an act is bad, without regret at its happening. I cannot understand regret without the admission of real genuine possibilities in the world."
"The only consistent way of representing ... a world whose parts may affect one another through their conduct being either good or bad is the indeterminate way. What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wrong way is also a possible and a natural way—nay, more, a menacing and an imminent way? And what sense can there be in condemning ourselves for taking the wrong way, unless we need have done nothing of the sort, unless the right way was open to us as well? I cannot understand the willingness to act, no matter how we feel, without the belief that acts are really good or bad. I cannot understand the belief that an act is bad, without regret at its happening. I cannot understand regret without the admission of real genuine possibilities in the world."
Eliminate from this all that is matter of common agreement between Determinists and Indeterminists, and what have we left but sheer verbal confusion? The pleasurable feeling that results from a sense of achievement is real no matter what are the lines on which the universe is constructed.One might as reasonably ask, Why feel a greater interest in a first-class orchestral performance, than in the harmonic outrages of a hurdy-gurdy, since both are, from the physical side, vibratory phenomena? And is it not clear, to repeat a truth already emphasized, that a most important factor in our condemning ourselves for doing a wrong action is the fact that we have done so. It is one of the determining conditions of doing better actions in future. Of course, Professor James cannot understand the belief that an act is bad, without regret at its happening. Neither can anyone else, for the simple reason that one involves the other. The statement is as much a truism as is the one that we can have no willingness to act unless we believe that acts are either good or bad. Equally true is it that regret implies real possibilities in the world—not always, though, for we may regret death or the radiation into extra terrestrial space of solar energy without believing that the prevention of either is possible. But our possibilities in relation to conduct do not, as the argument implies, relate to the past, but to the future. Indeed, the sense of possibility would be morally worthless were it otherwise.
Finally, and this brings me to what is one of the cardinal weaknesses of so much of the writing on psychology, Professor James's argument is vitiated by non-recognition of the fact that regret and satisfaction, praise and blame, with most of the cardinal moral qualities, aresocialin their origin and application. They represent the reaction of our social feelings against anti-social conduct, ortheir expression of satisfaction at conduct of an opposite character. They are consequently the creations, not of an indwelling "will," but of an outdwelling social relationship. They are not impressed by the "ego" upon the world, they are impressed by the world upon the ego. Character is not something that each individual brings ready fashioned to the service of society; it is something that society itself creates. It has been fashioned by countless generations of social evolution, and, in the main, that evolution has of necessity placed due emphasis upon those intellectual and moral qualities on which social welfare depends.
IfHume was not right in asserting that a few intelligible definitions would put an end to the Free-Will controversy, his error lay in assuming a greater receptivity of mind than most people possess. For it may safely be asserted that once the legitimate meanings of the terms employed are acknowledged, and they are properly applied to the matter in dispute, it may be shown that the opponents of Determinism have been beating the air. The Determinism they attack is not the Determinism that is either professed or defended. The consequences they forecast follow only from a distorted, and often meaningless, use of the terms employed. Instead of the Determinist denying the moral and mental value of certain qualities of which the Indeterminist announces himself the champion, he admits their value, gives them a definite meaning, and proves that it is only by an assumption of the truth of the cardinal principle of Determinism that they have any reality. This has already been shown to be true in the case of Freedom, Choice, Deliberation, etc.; it remains to pursue the same method with such conceptions as praise and blame or punishment and reward, and responsibility.
The charge is, again, that Determinism robspraise and blame and responsibility of all meaning, and reduces them to mere verbal expressions which some may mistake for the equivalents of reality, but which clearer thinkers will estimate at their true worth. What is the use of praising or blaming if each one does what heredity, constitution, and environment compels? Why punish a man for being what he is? Why hold him responsible for the expressions of a character provided for him, and for the influence of an environment which he had no part in forming? So the string of questions run on. None of them, it may safely be said, would ever be asked if all properly realized the precise meaning and application of the terms employed. For as with the previous terms examined, it is an acceptance of Indeterminism that would rob these words of all value. Rationally conceived they are not only consonant with Determinism, but each of them implies it.
Of the four terms mentioned above—Praise, Blame, Punishment, and Responsibility, the cardinal and governing one is the last. It will be well, therefore, to endeavour to fix this with some degree of clearness.
To commence with we may note that in contra-distinction to "freedom" where the testimony of consciousness is illegitimately invoked, a consciousness of responsibility is essential to its existence. A person in whom it was manifestly impossible to arouse such a consciousness would be unhesitatingly declared to be irresponsible. There is here, consequently, both the fact of responsibility and our consciousness of it that callsfor explanation. And both require for an adequate explanation a larger area than is offered by mere individual psychology. Indeed, so long as we restrict ourselves to the individual we cannot understand either the fact or the consciousness of responsibility. By limiting themselves in this manner some Determinists have been led to deny responsibility altogether. The individual, they have said, does not create either his own organism or its environment, and consequently all reasonable basis for responsibility disappears. To which there is the effective reply that the datum for responsibility is found in the nature of the organism and in the possibility of its being affected by certain social forces, and not in the absolute origination of its own impulses and actions. It is playing right into the hands of the Indeterminist to deny so large and so important a social phenomenon as responsibility. And to the Indeterminist attack, that if action is the expression of heredity, organism, and environment, there is no room for responsibility, there is the effective reply that it is precisely because the individual's actions are the expression of all the forces brought to bear upon him that he may be accounted responsible. The Determinist has often been too ready to take the meanings and implications of words from his opponent, instead of checking the sense in which they were used.
The general sense of responsibility—omitting all secondary meanings—is that of accountability, to be able to reply to a charge, or to be able to answer a claim made upon us. This at oncegives us the essential characteristic of responsibility, and also stamps it as a phenomenon of social ethics. A man living on a desert island would not be responsible, unless we assume his responsibility to deity; and even here we have the essential social fact—relation to a person—reintroduced. It is our relations to others, that and the influence of our actions upon others, combined with the possibility of our natures being affected by the praise or censure of the social body to which we belong, which sets up the fact of responsibility. Conduct creates a social reaction, good or bad, agreeable or disagreeable, and the reacting judgment of society awakens in each of us a consciousness of responsibility, more or less acute, and more or less drastic, to society at large. The individual sees himself in the social mirror. His nature is fashioned by the social medium, his personal life becomes an expression of the social life. Just as the social conscience, in the shape of a legal tribunal, judges each for actions that are past, so the larger social conscience, as expressed in a thousand and one different forms, customs, and associations, judges us for those desires and dispositions that may result in action in the future. Responsibility as a phenomenon of social psychology is obvious, educative, inescapable, and admirable. Responsibility as a phenomenon of individual psychology, whether from the Determinist or Indeterminist point of view, is positively meaningless.
Taking, then, responsibility as a fact of social life, with its true significance of accountability, letus see its meaning on deterministic lines. For the sake of clearness we will first take legal responsibility as illustrating the matter. In law a man is accounted guilty provided he knows the law he is breaking, and also that he is capable of appreciating the consequences of his actions. A further consideration of no mean importance is that the consequences attending the infringement of the law are assumed to be sufficiently serious to counterbalance the inducements to break the regulation. And as all citizens are assumed to know the law, we may confine our attention to the last two aspects. What, then, is meant by ability to appreciate consequences? There can be no other meaning than the capacity to create an ideal presentment of the penalties attaching to certain actions. Every promise of reward or threat of punishment assumes this, and assumes also that provided the ideal presentment is strong enough, certain general results will follow. It is on this principle alone that punishments are proportioned to offences, and that certain revisions of penalties take place from time to time. Negatively the same thing is shown by the fact that young children, idiots, and lunatics are not legally held responsible for their actions. The ground here is that the power to represent ideally the full consequences of actions is absent, or operates in an abnormal manner. Moreover, the whole line of proof to establish insanity in a court of law is that a person is not amenable to certain desires and impulses in the same manner as are normally constituted people.
Substantially the same thing is seen if we take the fact of responsibility in non-legal matters. A very young child, incapable of ideally representing consequences, is not considered a responsible being. An older child has a limited responsibility in certain simple matters. As it grows older, and growth brings with it the power of more fully appreciating the consequence of actions, its responsibility increases in the home, in the school, in business, social, religious, and political circles it is held accountable for its conduct, in proportion as the power of estimating the consequences of actions is assumed. In other words, we assume not that there is at any stage an autonomous or self-directing "will" in operation, but that a particular quality of motive will operate at certain stages of mental development, and the whole of the educative process, in the home, the school, and in society, aims at making these motives effective. That is, the whole fact of responsibility assumes as a datum the very condition that the Indeterminist regards as destroying responsibility altogether. He argues that if action is the expression of character, responsibility is a farce. But it is precisely because action is the expression of character that responsibility exists. When the law, or when society, calls a man to account for something he has done, it does not deny that had he possessed a different character he would have acted differently. It does not assert that at the time of action he could have helped doing what he did. Both may be admitted. What it does say is that having a character of such and such a kind certain thingsare bound to follow. But inasmuch as that character may be modified by social opinion or social coercion, inasmuch as it will respond to certain influences brought to bear upon it, it is a responsible character, and so may be held accountable for its actions.
There is, therefore, nothing incompatible between Determinism and Responsibility. The incompatibility lies between Indeterminism and Responsibility. What meaning can we attach to it, on what ground can we call a person to account, if our calling him to account is not one of the considerations that will affect his conduct? Grant that a consciousness of responsibility decides how a person shall act, and the principle of Determinism is admitted. Deny that a consciousness of responsibility determines action, and the phrase loses all meaning and value. The difficulty arises, as has been said, by ignoring the fact that responsibility is of social origin, and in looking for an explanation in individual psychology. It would, of course, be absurd to make man responsible for being what he is, but so long as he is amenable to the pressure of normal social forces he is responsible or accountable for what he may be. Whatever his character be, so long as it has the capacity of being affected by social pressure, it is a responsible character. And this is the sole condition that makes responsibility intelligible.
Having said this, it is not difficult to see the place of punishment and reward, or praise and blame, in the Determinist scheme of things. Another word than punishment might be selected,and one that would be without its unpleasant associations, but on the whole it is advisable perhaps to retain the word in order to see the nature of the problem clearly. Of course, punishment in the sense of the infliction of pain merely because certain actions have been committed, no Determinist would countenance. So far as punishment is inflicted in this spirit of sheer retaliation it serves only to gratify feelings of malevolence. A society that punishes merely to gratify resentment is only showing that it can be as brutal collectively as individuals can be singly. And if punishment begins and ends with reference to the past, then it is certainly revolting to inflict pain upon a person because he has done what education and organization impelled him to do. So far one can agree with Professor Sidgwick that when a man's conduct is "compared with a code, to the violation of which punishments are attached, the question whether he really could obey the rule by which he is judged is obvious and inevitable." But when he goes on to reply "If he could not, it seems contrary to our sense of justice to punish him," the reply is, Not if the code is one that normal human nature can obey, and the individual one who can be modified in a required direction in both his own interest and the interest of others. For if our punishment is prospective instead of retrospective, or at least retrospective only so far as to enable us to understand the character of the individual with whom we are dealing, and using punishment as one of the means of securing a desirable modification of character, then punishment is merged in correction, and receives a complete justification upon Deterministic lines.
The problem is comparatively simple. Actions being decided by motives, the problem with a socially defective character is how to secure the prevalence of desires that will issue in desirable conduct. A man steals; the problem then is, How can we so modify the character of which stealing is the expression, so that we may weaken the desire to steal and strengthen feelings that will secure honesty of action? On the lower plane society resorts to threats of pains and penalties, so that when the desire to steal arises again, the knowledge that certain measures will be taken against the offender will arrest this desire. This is one of the principal grounds on which a measure like the First Offenders Act is based. On a higher plane the approval and respect of society serve to awaken a positive liking for honesty and the formation of desirable mental habits. Praise and blame rest upon a precisely similar basis. Man being the socialized animal he is, the approbation and disapprobation of his fellows must always exert considerable influence on his conduct. The memory of censure passed or of praise bestowed acts as one of the many influences that will determine conduct when the critical moment for action arrives. Man does not always consciously put the question of what his social circle will think of his actions, but this feeling rests upon a deeper and more secure basis than that of consciousness. It has been, so to speak, worked into his nature by all the generations of social life that have preceded his existence,and to escape it means to put off all that is distinctly human in his character. Every time we praise or blame an action we are helping to mould character, for both will serve as guides in the future. And it is just because at the moment of action a person "could not help doing" what he did that there is any reasonable justification for either approval or censure. Social approval and disapproval become an important portion of the environment to which the human being must perforce adapt himself.
What use could there be in punishing or blaming a man if his actions are determined, not by realizable motives, but by a mysterious will that in spite of our endeavours remains uninfluenced? If neither the promise nor the recollection of punishment creates feelings that will determine conduct, then one might as well whip the wind. Its only purpose is to gratify our own feelings of anger or malevolence. It is equally futile to look for the cause of wrong-doing in education, organization, or environment. For in proportion as we recognize any or all of these factors as determining conduct we are deserting the Indeterminist position, and relinquishing the "freedom" of the will. If Indeterminism be true we are forced to believe that although as a consequence of ill-conduct evil feelings may arise with greater frequency, yet they must be wholly ineffective as influencing action. It cannot even be argued that certain motives offer stronger attraction than others to the will, for this in itself would be a form of determinism. There is no middle course. Either the "will" remains absolutely uninfluencedby threat of punishment or desire for praise, serenely indifferent to the conflict of desires, and proof against the influence of education, or it forms a part of the causative sequence and the truth of Determinism is admitted. You cannot at the same time hold that man does not act in accordance with the strongest motive, and decide that the "will" maintains its freedom by deciding which motive shall be the strongest—its own determination not being the product of previous training. One need, indeed, only state the Indeterminist position plainly to see its inherent absurdity.
If ever in any case the argumentad absurdumwas applicable it is surely here. It may safely be said that the larger part of the life of each of us is passed in anticipating the future in the light of experience. But if "Free-Will" be a fact, on what ground can we forecast the future. If motives do not determine conduct, any prophecy of what certain people may do in a given situation is futile. The will being indetermined, what they have done in the past is no guide as to what they will do in the future. If motives did not decide then they will not decide now. Whether we read backward or forward makes no difference. We have no right to say that the actions of certain statesmen prove them to have been animated by the desire for wealth or power. That would imply Determinism. We cannot say that because a murder has been committed a certain person who bore the deceased ill-will is rightly suspected. This is assuming that conduct is determined by motives. If we see a person jump into the river, we have no right to argue that depressedhealth, or financial worry, or impending social disgrace, has caused him to commit suicide. The mother may as easily murder her child as nurse it. The workman may labour as well for a bare pittance as for a comfortable wage. A man outside a house in the early hours of the morning, armed with a dark lantern and a jemmy, may have no desire to commit a burglary. A person with a game bag and a gun furnishes no reliable data for believing that he intends to shoot something. In all of these cases, and in hundreds of others, if "free-will" be a fact we have no right to argue from actions to motives, or infer motives from actions. Motives do not rule, and we are witnessing the uncaused and unaccountable vagaries of an autonomous will.
It is sometimes said that no matter how convinced a Determinist one may be, one always acts as though the will were free. This, so far from being true, is the reverse of what really happens. In all the affairs of life people of all shades of opinion concerning Determinism really act as though "Free-Will" had no existence. It would, indeed, be strange were it otherwise. Facts are more insistent than theories, and in the last resort it is the nature of things which determines the course of our actions. Nature, while permitting considerable latitude in matters of theory or opinion, allows comparatively little play in matters of conduct. And it may be asserted that a society which failed to acknowledge in its conduct the principle of Determinism would stand but small chance of survival. As a matter of fact, when it comes to practical work the theory of "Free-Will" is ignored and the theory ofDeterminism acted upon. The unfortunate thing is that the maintenance of "Free-Will" in the sphere of opinion serves to check the wholesome application of the opposite principle. Theory is used to check action instead of serving its proper function as a guide to conduct.
Still, it is instructive to note to what extent in the sphere of practice the principle of Determinism is admitted. In dealing with the drink question, for instance, temperance reformers argue that a diminution in the number of public-houses, and the creation of opportunities for healthy methods of enjoyment, will diminish temptation and weaken the desire for alcoholic stimulants. In the training of children stress is rightly laid upon the importance of the right kind of associates, the power of education, and of healthy physical surroundings. With adults, the beneficial influences of fresh air, good food, well-built houses, open spaces, and healthy conditions of labour have become common-places of sociology. In every rational biography attention is paid to the formative influences of parents, friends, and general environment. Medical men seek the cause of frames of mind in nervous structure, and predisposition to physical, mental, and moral disease in heredity. Statisticians point to absolute uniformity of general human action under certain social conditions. Moralists point to the power of ideals on people's minds. Religious teachers emphasize the power of certain teachings in reducing particular habits. In all these cases no allowance whatever is made for the operation of an undetermined will. The motive theory of action may not be consciously inthe minds of all, but it is everywhere and at all times implied in practice.
In strict truth, we cannot undertake a single affair in life without making the assumption that people will act in accordance with certain motives, and that these in turn will be the outcome of specific desires. If I journey from here to Paris I unconsciously assume that certain forces—the desire to retain a situation, to earn a living, to satisfy a sense of duty—will cause all the officials connected with boat and train service to carry out their duties in a given manner. If I appeal for the protection of the police I am again counting upon certain motives influencing the official mind in a particular manner. All commercial transactions rest upon the same unconscious assumption. A merchant who places an order with a firm in Russia, America, or Japan, or who sends goods abroad, counts with absolute confidence upon certain desires and mental states so influencing a number of people with whom he has no direct connection, that they will co-operate in landing the goods at the point desired. Or if the goods are not transmitted as desired, it is not because the principle upon which he relied is invalid, but because other desires have operated in a more powerful manner. A general commanding an army acts on precisely the same principle. The ideal of duty, of the honour of the regiment, the desire for distinction, are all counted upon as being powerful enough to serve as motives that will cause men to join in battle, storm a risky position, or take part in a forlorn hope. History is read upon the same principle. The statement that Nero was cruel, thatHenry the Eighth was of an amatory nature, that Charles I. was tyrannical, or that Louis the Fifteenth was licentious, could not be made unless we argue that their actions imply the existence of certain motives. That the motive theory of the will is true is admitted in practice by all. The Indeterminist admits it even in his appeal to "Liberty." He is counting upon the desire for freedom (sociologically) as being strong enough to lead people to reject a theory which denies its applicability to morals.
Human nature becomes a chaos if Determinism is denied. Neither a science of human conduct nor of history is possible in its absence; for both assume a fundamental identity of human nature beneath all the comparatively superficial distinctions of colour, creed, or national divisions. The determination of the influence of climate, food, inter-tribal or international relations, of the power of ideals—moral, religious, military, national, etc.—are all so many exercises in the philosophy of Determinism. In none of these directions do we make the least allowance for the operation of an uncaused "will." We say with absolute confidence that given a people with a military environment, and either its discomforts produce an anti-militarist feeling, or its glamour evokes a strong militarist feeling. So with all other consideration that comes before us. And as Determinism enables us to read and understand history and life, so it also provides a basis upon which we can work for reform. In the belief that certain influences will produce, in the main, a particular result, we can lay our plans and workwith every prospect of ultimate success. Instead of our best endeavours being left at the mercy of an undetermined "will," they take their place as part of the determining influences that are moulding human nature. Every action becomes a portion of the environment with which each has to deal. More, it becomes a portion of the agent's own environment, a part of that ideal world in which we all more or less live. And the heightened consciousness that every action leaves a certain residuum for either good or ill, supplies in itself one of the strongest incentives for the exercise of self-control and furnishes an unshakable basis for self-development.
Inspite of what has been said, it may be that a protest will still be raised by some on behalf of character. A man's character, it will be argued, is an alienable personal possession. What he does belongs to him in a sense that is peculiar to his personality. In many important instances his actions bear the stamp of individuality in so plain a manner that while we cannot predict what he will do, once it is done we recognize by the peculiar nature of the action that it must have been done by him and by none other. In painting, in music, in literature, and in many other walks of life, we are able to infer authorship by the personality stamped upon the production. Moreover, nothing that we can do or say will ever destroy the conviction that my actions aremine. They proceed fromme; they are the expressions ofmycharacter; it is this feeling that induces me to plead guilty to the charge of responsibility, and this conviction remains after all argument has been urged. But, it is further asked, how can this be aught but an illusion if I am not the real and determining cause of my conduct? If I and my actions are the products of a converging series of calculable or indetermined forces, are we not compelled to dismiss this conviction as pure myth? Must I not conclude that I am no more the determining cause of my conduct than a stone determines whether it shall fall to the ground or not?And is not the cultivation of character, therefore, an absurd futility?
Now although the Determinist will dissent from the conclusions of those who argue in this way, with a great deal of the argument he would agree; more than that, he would enforce the same line of reasoning as a legitimate inference from his own position. And he might also submit that it is only by an acceptance of the deterministic position that such reasoning can receive full justification.
What do we mean by character? Suppose we reply with T. H. Green by defining character as the way in which a man seeks self-satisfaction.[7]We are next faced with the problem of accounting for the different ways in which self-satisfaction is sought. One man is a drunkard and another temperate, one is benevolent and another grasping, one is cruel and another kind; there are endless diversities of human conduct, and all come within the scope of Green's definition of character. We have to look farther and deeper. A satisfactory answer clearly cannot be found in the assumption that each person's actions proceed from an unfettered, autonomous will. The reason for the choice would still have to be discovered. Nor will it do to attribute the difference of choice to different environmental influences in which the "self" is placed. This would indeed be reducing the man to the level of a machine, or to a lower level still. And the same environmental influences donotproduce identical results. This is one of the commonestfacts of daily experience. Stimulus from the environment is the essential condition of action, but the precise nature of the action elicited is an affair of the organism. If I am courageous by nature I shall stay and face a threatened danger. If I am cowardly I shall run away. Thus, while circumstances are the cause of my acting, how I shall act is in turn caused by my character, the net result being due to their interaction. This seems so obvious that it may well be accepted as a datum common to both parties in the dispute.
We may, then, freely grant the Indeterminist—what he foolishly assumes is inconsistent with the Deterministic position—that environment may be modified by character, that a man is not the creature of circumstances, if we restrict that word to external circumstances, as is so often done. A man, we will say, allowing for the influence of external circumstances, acts according to his character. The question then becomes, "What is his character? How does he acquire it?[8]And whence the varieties of character?" To these queries the only intelligible reply is that a man's character represents his psychic heritage, as his body represents his physical heritage, both of them being subject to development and modification by post-natal influences. Each one thus brings a different psychic force, or a different character, to bear upon the world around him. Heis thus the author of his acts, not in the unintelligible sense of absolutely originating the sequence that proceeds from his actions, but in the rational sense of being that point in the sequence that is represented by his personality. And his actions bear the stamp of his personality because had his antecedents been different his actions would have varied accordingly. Each is properly judged in terms of character, because it is the character which determines the form taken by the reaction of the organism on the environment.
We may go even further than this and say that it is only actions which proceed from character that are properly the subject of moral judgment. Let us take a concrete illustration of this. A man distributes a large sum of money among the inhabitants of a town, some of it in the form of personal gifts among its needy inhabitants, the rest in endowing various institutions connected with its social and municipal life. Twelve months later he comes forward as candidate in a parliamentary election. The question of his donations at once comes up for judgment, and in defence he may plead that he was only invited to contest the seat after the money was given. How shall we determine what his motives were? Obviously by an appeal to his character. If he were well known as a wealthy person of recognized benevolent disposition, it would be argued that while his candidature would inevitably reap benefit from his donations it was highly probable that in giving the money he was only acting as one would expect him to act. If, on the other hand, he was well known as a person of a mean and graspingdisposition, it would be concluded that the donation was an attempt to bribe the electorate, his giving the money so long before being an intelligent anticipation of events. In either case we should be appealing to character, and judging the man by what of his character was known. Numerous instances of a like kind might be given, but in every case it would be found that we infer from an action a particular kind of motive, and that our judgment of the motive is determined by the character of the individual. This is so far the case that we are apt to mistrust our own judgment when we find a benevolent person doing what looks like a mean action, or a brave person committing what looks like an act of cowardice. While action is thus—so far as it is intentional—always the registration of motive, and motive the expression of a preponderating desire, the desire, whether it be licentious or chaste, noble or ignoble, is the outcome of character.
Determinism thus finds a fit and proper place for character in its philosophy of things. It does not say that the fact or the consideration of character is irrelevant; on the contrary, it says it is all-important. And in saying this it challenges the position of the Indeterminist by the implication that it is only on lines of Determinism that character is important or that it can be profitably cultivated. For consider what is meant by saying that conduct implies and proceeds from character. It clearly implies that a man acts in this or that manner because he has been in the habit of acting in this or that manner. We do not gather grapes from thistles, and we do notexperience noble actions from a depraved character. The actions of each are determined by the character of each, and character is in turn the outcome of psychic inheritance, plus the effects of the interaction of organism and environment from the moment of birth onward. Personal characteristics, honesty, courage, truthfulness, loyalty, thus imply strictly determined qualities. They are qualities determined by the nature of the organism. They could not be expressed unless the surrounding circumstances were favourable to their expression; but neither could they be manifested unless the character was of a particular order. Conduct is, in fact, always a product of the two things.
Let us also note that it is this determination of qualities that is implied when we speak of a good or a bad, a strong or a weak character. We should not call a man a good character who to-day fed a starving child, and to-morrow kicked it from his doorstep. We should describe him as, at best, a person of an exceedingly variable disposition who satisfied the caprice of the moment irrespective of the feelings and needs of others. We should not call a person strong who withstood a temptation one hour and yielded to it the next. He would be described as weak, and lacking the compelling force of a stable disposition. It is also true that the moralization of character is the more complete as the determined nature of impulses is the more evident. Most people would not only resent the imputation of having committed a mean action, they would also resent the likelihood of their committing one. And in common speech, and in fact, thehighest tribute we can pay a man is to say that a certain kind of action is beneath him. We say that we know A would not have committed a theft, but we are quite willing to believe it of B. In each case we make no allowance for the operation of an undetermined will; such doubts as we have being connected with our inability to completely analyze the character in question. But our prognostications are strictly based upon our knowledge of character and upon the conviction that given a certain character and the operation of particular motives, specific action follows with mathematical certainty.