THE CREDIT FOR GOOD ACTIONS. 529 



Now we not infrequently hear that, if the position taken by the 

 determinist is right, our notions of the creditable or discreditable 

 character of actions must be wholly erroneous. What the determinist 

 really holds I have tried to make clear in an earlier number of this 

 magazine.* He holds that human actions could be completely ac- 

 counted for if we really knew all their antecedents. Among these 

 antecedents he reckons the character, the inherent or acquired impulses, 

 of the individual. It is only the fatalist that overlooks these, and 

 fatalism is something very different indeed from determinism. The 

 determinst maintains that the question : 'Why did this man act in this 

 particular manner?' is never a foolish question, although we may in 

 any particular instance be ignorant of the answer. He assumes that 

 there is always some cause or causes that can account for the result. 

 The 'free-willist,' on the other hand, maintains that no complete answer 

 to such a question can be given, not because we are ignorant, but be- 

 cause human actions are not necessarily the results of causes. If we 

 ask him : 'Why did this man elect to put his hand in his pocket and take 

 out a copper for the beggar on the street ?' he is capable of answering : 

 Must because he did,' and tliis 'because' is no better than a 'woman's 

 reason,' i. e., it is no reason at all. It amounts to asserting that, in so 

 far as human actions are 'free,' they have no cause whatever, and the 

 search for an explanation of their occurrence is wholly futile. 



But what can induce any man to hold that we cannot regard actions 

 as creditable in so far as they can be accounted for by antecedents of 

 some sort, and that we must regard them as creditable only in so far as 

 they are causeless? The position is one often enough taken, and prob- 

 ably there is no one of my readers who has done some reading in ethics 

 who has not met with this opinion. It is clear that there is nothing 

 in what I have said above about the credit we allow to good actions, that 

 cannot be assented to by a determinist. He admits that men differ 

 greatly in character, and that, in the same circumstances, two different 

 men may act in very different ways. He admits that men's characters 

 may change, and thinks it his duty to influence them to change in the 

 proper direction. Eewards and punishments he regards as a part of the 

 machinery which brings about the gradual moralization of the race. He 

 sees no objections to distributing rewards where they will do the most 

 good and the least harm ; and he points to the actual practise of man- 

 kind in evidence of the fact that men generally have unconsciously em- 

 braced the principle upon which he insists, and do constantly act upon 

 it. Yet the 'free-willist' maintains that he is wholly in error, and that 

 credit and discredit must be allowed upon a very different principle. 

 Does the 'free-willist' take this position 'freely,' i. e., for no reason at 



* December, 1900. 

 VOL. Lix. — 37 



