302 NATURE AND MAN. 



very different from those with which we view the like actions of 

 men whom we regard as possessing a self-regulating power.* We 

 should never think of blaming a wasp for stinging us, or a poisonous 

 snake for biting us ; neither do we esteem a bee deserving of credit 

 for its industry in laying up honey for our use, or deem the silk- 

 worai an object of gratitude for the toilsome ingenuity with which 

 it spins the cocoon whose thread furnishes the material of our 

 most beautiful fabrics ; — each of these creatures doing that which 

 it is its "nature" to do, and having no power to do otherwise. 

 We make the like allowance for young children, or even for 

 " children of a larger growth," in whom the moral sense and 

 the power of self-control have not yet been developed ; as we do 

 also for the insane, who are either deficient in the power of 

 self-direction, or whose will is overborne by some uncontroll- 

 able impulse. We hold them " not responsible " for any injury 

 they may do us ; and justify the discipline to which we subject 

 them, as alike needful for the welfare of society at large, and likely 

 to be beneficial to themselves. But we view in a very different 

 light the acts of simple recklessness, still more those of deliberate 

 selfishness, and yet more again those of treacherous and unmanly 

 brutality, that are committed by men who knowing better have 

 preferred the worse ; acting on the suggestions of slothful folly, or 

 the cool calculations of self-interest, or the fierce impulses of 

 malignant passion, without regard to the sufferings which their 

 misdeeds may bring upon others. 



When, for example, a man throws down stones from a house- 

 top without looking to see who is below, or fires a pistol in a 

 crowded thoroughfare without care as to who may be in the line 

 of the bullet, not only does the law regard him as fully " respon- 

 sible " for any injury that may be caused by his act (holding him 

 guilty of murder if death ensues), but public feeling sanctions 



* See the " Psychologic Naturelle " of M. Prosper Despine ; in which the 

 mental mechanism of crime is studied from nature, under the guidance of views 

 as to the relation betv/cen the automatism of Man's nature and the controlling 

 power of the will, which essentially correspond with those set forth in the 

 present work. A large proportion of criminal offenders, according to M. 

 Despine, are so devoid of moral sense, that they must be accounted "moral 

 jdiots ; " and in many more, that sense is temporarily overborne by a passion 

 which the subject of it has never been trained to control. 



