EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



the determinist, who knows that the will is caused, 

 and that man's character is his destiny, will attach 

 supreme importance to moral education, and not 

 least to the development of the sense of responsi- 

 bility. 



Here, you will say, is a glaring absurdity. Is it 

 not the advocate of free-will who swears by the 

 sense of responsibility? Is it not the determinist 

 who, by denying the freedom of the will, denies 

 that we are responsible? Yet, in the face of the 

 arguments which I advanced at the beginning of 

 this chapter, I dare maintain that the determinist 

 will devote his most earnest educational efforts to 

 the development of that sense of responsibility 

 which he is told that his creed repudiates. 



And assuredly one of the forces which he will 

 bring to bear at the risk of being called incon- 

 sistent is punishment. Perhaps, if we call pun- 

 ishment by a slightly different name, consequence, 

 the charge of inconsistency will be withdrawn. If 

 I sin against a law of nature, I suffer ; and that is 

 natural consequence. If I sin against a law of so- 

 ciety, I suffer; and that society, like its com- 

 ponents, being a natural product is also natural 

 consequence. My action is thus restrained, modi- 

 fied, determined, by public opinion, or, to use Scho- 

 penhauer's phrase in his famous analysis of con- 

 science, by fear of men. The Church, which had 

 to invent the doctrine of free-will to square with 

 its naive theory of things, has yielded to none in 

 recognition of the fact that the will is not free, but 

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