THE CREDIT FOR GOOD ACTIONS. 533 



iir not a moral act for a savage to save a man alive if he is spared with 

 the intention of fattening and eating him later. 



Now let us suppose that the action under discussion is my contribu- 

 tion of a dollar to the hoard of the beggar on the corner. Is it a credit- 

 able action? Is it even a moral action? Only the unreflective will 

 undertake to answer off-hand that it is. I may have given that dollar 

 in the hope that one more drinking-bout would finish the beggar, and 

 relieve me of his unfesthetic presence when I take my daily walk. I may 

 have given it out of pure vanity, and to compel the admiration of the 

 pleasing young person who is waiting for the tram. On the other hand, 

 I may have given it because I was touched by the sight of suffering, and 

 was willing to make a sacrifice for the sake of relieving it. It seems the 

 most natural thing in the world to judge that the action was, in the 

 last case, a creditable one, but was not creditable in the others. We 

 have been judging of actions in this way all our lives. 



But what if the act was a 'free' one ? What if it was not determined 

 by my character and impulses and the peculiar circumstances in which 

 I was placed? In this case it cannot be explained by my desire to be 

 rid of the beggar's presence. The impression made upon me by the fair 

 onlooker cannot account for it. The sight of the beggar's misery 

 furnishes no explanation. We cannot ask tvhy the act was done. It 

 was a 'free' act. It simply appeared. It was not done for the sake of 

 removing the beggar, tickling my vanity or relieving suffering; for 

 just in so far as an act is 'free' it cannot be accounted for by any ideas 

 antecedently in my mind or by my natural tendency to selfishness, to 

 vanity or to generous movements of sympathy. It is, hence, an act 

 without a setting — causeless, purposeless, blind. Is it a creditable act? 

 Are such acts the only creditable acts? Surely we have turned our 

 face resolutely away from the moral judgments of mankind when we 

 have committed ourselves to the unnatural doctrine that only 'free' acts 

 are deserving of credit. 



It is quite inconceivable that men should with open eyes defend the 

 doctrine of 'freedom' on moral grounds. When they attempt to do so, 

 h is clear that they are really arguing in favor of freedom, a thing well 

 worth fighting for, and dear to the heart of determinist and 'free-willist' 

 alike. They have simply fallen into a confusion, and have confounded 

 two things that are extremely unlike. I should be the last to maintain 

 that the world could get on properly without philosophers, but I must 

 frankly admit that the philosopher sometimes falls into error, and is 

 very apt to take with him in his fall certain of the by-standers who, if 

 k''t to themselves, would never have thought of tumbling into that par- 

 ticular ditch. 



