Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/198

190 ardent 'free-willist' will, when he contemplates it frankly, excuse me for hoping that, if I am 'free' I am at least not very 'free,' and that I may reasonably expect to find some degree of consistency in my life and actions. An excess of such 'freedom' is indistinguishable from the most abject slavery to lawless caprice.

And when I consider my relations to my fellow-men the outlook is no better. It is often said that the determinist may grant rewards or inflict punishments as a means of attaining certain desired ends, but that for him there can in all this be no question of justice or injustice. One man is by nature prone to evil as the sparks fly upward; another is born an embryo saint. One is ushered into this world, if not 'trailing clouds of glory,' yet with such clouds, in the shape of civilizing influences, hovering about the very cradle in which he is to lie; another opens his eyes upon a light which breaks feebly through the foul and darkened window-pane, and which is lurid with the reflections of degradation and vice. One becomes the favorite of fortune, and the other the unhappy subject of painful correction. Unless there be 'free-will,' where can we find even the shadow of justice in our treatment of these? We have all heard the argument at length, and I shall not enter into it further; nor shall I delay over the question of the true meaning of the terms justice and injustice, though this meaning is often taken for granted in a very heedless way. I shall merely inquire whether the assumption of 'freedom' contributes anything toward the solution of the problem of punishment.

Let us suppose that Tommy's mother is applying a slipper to some portion of his frame for having 'freely' raided the pantry. Does she punish him for having done the deed, or does she punish him to prevent its recurrence? In either case, she seems, if the deed was a 'free' one, to be acting in a wholly unreasonable way. Was the deed really done by Tommy—i. e., was it the natural result of his knowledge of the contents of the pantry, his appetite for jam, and the presence of the key in the door? Not at all. The act was a 'free' one, and not conditioned by either Tommy's character or his environment. The child's grandfather might have 'freely' stolen jam under just the same circumstances. Thus, in a true sense of the words, the child did not do it. Who can cause what is causeless? Moreover, by no possibility could he have prevented it. Who can guard against the spontaneity of 'freedom'? No resolve, as we have seen, can condition the unconditioned. Then why beat the poor child for what he did not do and what he could not possibly have prevented? Surely this is wanton cruelty, and worthy of all reprobation!

Is the punishment intended to prevent a recurrence of the deed? How futile a measure! Does the silly woman actually believe that she can with a slipper make such changes in Tommy's mind or body as to