THE LIMITS OF HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 313 



all, in new significations. The welfare of that aggregate of auto- 

 mata which we call society, may require that every individual 

 automaton shall be prevented from doing what is injurious to it ; 

 and punishment for offences actually committed may be reason- 

 ably inflicted as a deterrent from the repetition of such offences 

 by the individual or by others. But if the individual has ifi 

 Imnsdf no power eidier to do the right or to avoid the wrong, 

 and if the potency of that aggregate of feelings about actions as 

 being "right or wrong" which is termed conscience, entirely 

 depends upon " circumstances " over which he neither has, nor 

 ever has had any control, I fail to see in what other sense he 

 should be held "responsible" for doing what he knows that 

 he " ought not" to have done, or for doing what he knows that he 

 "ought" to have done, than a steam-engine, which breaks away 

 from its "governor" in consequence of a sudden increase of 

 steam-pressure, or which comes to a stop through the bursting 

 of its steam-pipe, can be accounted responsible for the damage 

 thence arising. 



The idea of " responsibility," on the other hand, which is 

 entertained by mankind at large, rests upon the assumption, not 

 only that each Ego has a conscience which recognizes a distinc- 

 tion between right and wrong, and which (according to the train- 

 ing it has received) decides zvhat is right and what is wrong in 

 each individual case, but also that he has a volitional power 

 which enables him to intensify his sense of " duty " by fixing his 

 attention upon it, and thus gives it a potency in determining his 

 conduct which it might not have otherwise possessed. That this 

 power is a part of the Ego's " formed character," and that it can 

 only be exerted within certain limits, is fully admitted on the 

 doctrine I advocate ; but the responsibility of the Ego is shifted 

 backwards to the share he has had in the formation of his cha- 

 racter and in the determination of those limits. And here, again, 

 the results of scientific investigation are in complete harmony 

 with the precepts of the greatest of all religious teachers. For 

 no one can study these with care, without perceiving that Jesus 

 and Paul addressed themselves rather to the formation of the 

 character than to the laying down rules for conduct ; that they 

 endeavoured rather to cultivate the dispositions which should 



