SOWING THE STORM 19 



leave free will as its residue at the bottom of a 

 test tube, no matter to what degree of Fahrenheit 

 you may have raised its contents. No more can 

 it produce this same result in the human com- 

 pound. Haeckel is right in denying free will if 

 there is nothing in the universe but matter and 

 force; and equally right is Blatchford on that 

 same supposition when he draws from it the in- 

 escapable conclusion that no criminal, no matter 

 how vile and abhorrent his deeds, should ever 

 be judged because of them. Considered purely 

 as results of physical laws and chemical reactions, 

 are they not just as admirable as the highest acts 

 of virtue? Yet if the accepted teaching of an ir- 

 religious education is correct, if matter and force 

 are all, if materialistic evolution is the ultimate 

 word, then surely they are nothing more than that. 



Although no criminal, therefore, must then be 

 considered guilty, yet for the good of society, it is 

 thought by Blatchford, that he may be temporari- 

 ly kept in confinement made as delightful as pos- 

 sible. Such is the brief abstract of this pleasant 

 doctrine that so highly recommends itself to 

 modern criminologists and is most eminently 

 reasonable on the ground of materialistic evolu- 

 tion. 



Not merely is "idiocy a reversion, crime a 

 disease, free will a delusion and religion an emo- 

 tion," according to the doctrine of our advanced 

 sociologists, but their code of morality and social 



