106 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



free, or are it and Nature equally " bound fast 

 in fate ? " From this latter conclusion, after 

 he had established it to the entire satisfaction 

 of his understanding, the great German thinker 

 Fichte recoiled. You will find the record of this 

 struggle between head and heart in his book 

 entitled " Die Bestimmung des Menschen " (" The 

 Vocation of Man "). 1 Fichte was determined at 

 all hazards to maintain his freedom, but the price 

 he paid for it indicates the difficulty of the task. 

 To escape from the iron necessity seen every- 

 where reigning in physical Nature, he turned defi- 

 antly round upon Nature and law, and affirmed 

 both of them to be the products of his own mind. 

 He was not going to be the slave of a thing which 

 he had himself created. There is a good deal to 

 be said in favor of this view, but few of us prob- 

 ably would be able to bring into play the sol- 

 vent transcendentalism whereby Fichte melted his 

 chains. 



Why do some of us regard this notion of ne- 

 cessity with terror, while others do not fear it 

 at all ? Has not Carlyle somewhere said that a 

 belief in destiny is the bias of all earnest minds? 

 "It is not Nature," says Fichte, "it is freedom 

 itself, by which the greatest and most terrible dis- 

 orders incident to our race are produced. Man is 

 the crudest enemy of man." But the question 

 of moral responsibility here emerges, and it is the 

 possible loosening of this responsibility that so 

 many of us dread. The notion of necessity cer- 

 tainly failed to frighten Bishop Butler. He 

 thought it untrue, but he did not fear its practi- 

 cal consequences. He showed, on the contrary, 

 in the " Analogy," that as far as human conduct 

 is concerned the two theories of free-will and 

 necessity come to the same in the end. 



What is meant by free-will? Does it imply 

 the power of producing events without antece- 

 dents — of starting, as it were, upon a creative 

 tour of occurrences without any impulse from 

 within or from without? Let us consider the 

 point. If there be absolutely or relatively no 

 reason why a tree should fall, it will not fall ; and, 

 if there be absolutely or relatively no reason why 

 a man should act, he will not act. It is true that 

 the united voice of this assembly could not per- 

 suade me that I have not, at this moment, the 

 power to lift my arm if I wished to do so. Within 

 this range the conscious freedom of my will can- 

 not be questioned. But what about the origin of 

 the "wish?" Are we, or are we not, complete 

 masters of the circumstances which create our 

 wishes, motives, and tendencies to action ? Ade- 

 i Translated by Dr. William Smith. Trubner, 1873. 



quate reflection will, I think, prove that we are not. 

 What, for example, have I had to do with the gen- 

 eration and development of that which some will 

 consider my total being, and others a most potent 

 factor of my total being — the living, speaking or- 

 ganism which now addresses you ? As stated at 

 the beginning of this discourse, my physical and in- 

 tellectual textures were woven for me, not by me. 

 Processes in the conduct or regulation of which 

 I had no share have made me what I am. Here, 

 surely, if anywhere, we are as clay in the hands 

 of the potter. It is the greatest of delusions to 

 suppose that we come into this world as sheets 

 of white paper on which the age can write any- 

 thing it likes, making us good or bad, noble or 

 mean, as the age pleases. The age can stunt, 

 promote, or pervert preexistent capacities, but it 

 cannot create them. The worthy Robert Owen, 

 who saw in external circumstances the great 

 moulders of human character, was obliged to 

 supplement his doctrine by making the man him- 

 self one of the circumstances. It is as fatal as it 

 is cowardly to blink facts because they are not 

 to our taste. How many disorders, ghostly and 

 bodily, are transmitted to us by inheritance ! In 

 our courts of law, whenever it is a question 

 whether a crime has been committed under the 

 influence of insanity, the best guidance the judge 

 and jury can have is derived from tne parental 

 antecedents of the accused. If among these in- 

 sanity be exhibited in any marked degree, the 

 presumption in the prisoner's favor is enormously 

 enhanced, because the experience of life has 

 taught both judge and jury that insanity is fre- 

 quently transmitted from parent to child. 



I met some years ago in a railway-carriage the 

 governor of one of our largest prisons. He was 

 evidently an observant and reflective man, pos- 

 sessed of wide experience gathered in various 

 parts of the world, and a thorough student of the 

 duties of his vocation. He told me that the prison- 

 ers in his charge might be divided into three dis- 

 tinct classes. The first class consisted of persons 

 who ought never to have been in prison. External 

 accident, and not internal taint, had brought them 

 within the grasp of the law, and what had happened 

 to them might happen to most of us. They were 

 essentially men of sound moral stamina, though 

 wearing the prison-garb. Then came the largest 

 class, formed of individuals possessing no strong 

 bias, moral or immoral, plastic to the touch of 

 circumstances which could mould them into 

 either good or evil members of society. Thirdly 

 came a class — happily not a large one — whom no 

 kindness could conciliate, and no discipline tame. 



