SOMETHING NEW IN "FREEWILL" 349 



and punish without taking into consideration what is in the person 

 with whom we are dealing. That such a doctrine should be brought 

 forward at all, can only be explained, I think, on the ground that the 

 " freewillist," having been brought up to think that " freewill " actions 

 are, above all others, the actions of which ethics must take account, and 

 now being brought to a consciousness of the absurdity of talking about 

 the merit or demerit of " free " actions, feels driven to the extreme 

 statement that we must banish the notions of merit and demerit from 

 ethics altogether. 



To be sure, it is hinted that we are forced to drop all consideration 

 of merit, not because we are assured that there is no such thing, but 

 rather because we must remain in doubt as to who may justly lay 

 claim to it, if any may — " God alone can know our merits, if we have 

 any." So far as our dealings with our fellowmen go, however, it is as 

 though there were no such thing ; and with merit goes demerit ; and, of 

 course, their synonyms good and ill desert go, too. We must not look 

 upon men as deserving or undeserving, for " God alone can know " in 

 such matters as these. 



Now I beg the reader to open his eyes upon his own life and that 

 of his companions, and to ask himself whether he would ever dream 

 of living through a day under the guidance of such ethical principles 

 as are here suggested. Eemember that the principles are these : he who 

 does good acts is to be praised ; he who does bad acts is to be punished ; 

 no consideration is to be had to what is in the agent, he is to be praised 

 or punished " anyhow " ; no act is to be looked upon as meritorious or 

 the reverse, as creditable or discreditable. 



Think of the frightful insults which one living a day under these 

 principles would, by his indiscriminate praise, heap upon the unoffend- 

 ing heads of the good — the uncalled-for compliments paid to gentle 

 old ladies on their keeping out of street brawls; the congratulations 

 lavished upon the president of the temperance society in view of the 

 fact that he passed a dozen saloons without going in; the warm grasp 

 of the hand given to the college professor for his regular and studious 

 habits. Think of the cruelty which would result from treating all 

 offenders alike — the mature and the immature, the case-hardened and 

 the man who has succumbed to sudden temptation. Think of the dis- 

 tortion of the moral judgment which must result from embracing the 

 opinion that nothing is creditable or discreditable to anybody. That 

 freshmen should skip like lambs does not seem unnatural or unbecom- 

 ing; but that the venerable men who are set over them should disport 

 themselves as rams must be regarded as discreditable, I submit, by any 

 unbiased mind. 



Such a day as the one referred to above would be a day in a thou- 

 sand, and its description well worthy of the pen of a ready writer. 



