312 NATURE AND MAN. 



Omniscience alone can rightly assign the moral responsibility 

 of each individual for his several acts ; the degree of that respon- 

 sibility being determined (as in the cases cited under the last 

 head) by the proportion which his will or self-regulating power 

 bears to the strength of the dominant motives by which he is 

 urged in each case. This ratio, as already shown, will be a 

 " general resultant " of the whole previous course of life ; every 

 exercise of the will increasing its vigour and controlling efficiency, 

 while every weak concession to a dominant passion tends to make 

 the individual its slave. And thus a man (or woman) may come 

 at last so far to have lost the power of self-conlrol, as to be unable 

 to resist a temptation to what is known to be wrong, and to be 

 therefore morally irresponsible for the particular act ; but such an 

 individual, like the drunkard in the commission of violence, is 

 responsible for his irresponsibility, because he has wilfully abnegated 

 his power of self-control, by habitually yielding to temptations 

 which he knows that he ought to have resisted. 



The moral judgments which tve form of the actions of other 

 men, are necessarily as imperfect as our predictions of their con- 

 duct ; since no one can fully estimate the relative potency of 

 heredity and environments, on the one side, and of the sense of 

 duty and capacity of willing, on the other : and the consciousness 

 of our own weakness in resisting the temptations which we feel 

 most attractive to ourselves, should lead us to make large allow- 

 ance for the frailties and shortcomings of others. There are too 

 many, who, as old Butler pithily said — 



*' Compound for sins they are inclined to, 

 " By damning those they have no mind to." 



Kindly allowance for the offender (" considering thyself, lest thou 

 " also be tempted ") is perfectly consistent with reprobation of 

 the offence. And thus the "charity" which " beareth all things, 

 " believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things," 

 is in strict accordance with the results of psychological inquiry 

 into the influences which form the character and determine the 

 relative potency of motives. 



It seems to me (as to Mr. Sidgwick, op. cit., p. 50) quite 

 clear that on the automatist or determinist theory, such words as 

 "ought," "duty," "responsibility," have to be used, if used at 



