THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME jqi 



ruin. There is no hope for the man who has no 

 faith in his possibiHties and his responsibiUty. If 

 the inner testimony to freedom is discredited, the 

 last bulwark against chaos is broken down. All 

 forms of philosophical thought which teach that 

 man is but a fortuitous grouping of atoms, or which 

 allow that even heredity can fetter the will with- 

 out deranging the mind, so far as they prevail, sap 

 the foundations of improvement. 



Environment may be bettered, but environment 

 without consciousness of freedom and responsi- 

 i bility will not long have influence over a man of 

 depraved heredity. It is precisely because it is 

 presumed that there is something in all men, how- 

 ever degraded, which can respond to better things, 

 that better things are, or should be, provided. A 

 hog in a palace would be a hog to its death. The 

 splendour would make no impression on his nature. 

 But a " Bridge-boy," a character so well known in 

 London, in the same place would be transformed. 

 There is something in him to which appeal can be 

 made. Neither heredity nor environment destroys 

 responsibility. If drunkards were treated as crim- 

 inals, there would be a surprising manifestation of 

 power to resist temptation. 



But inebriates and criminals are very often 

 unfortunates as well as wrong-doers ; they are in 



