EUGENICS AND EUTHENICS 205 



of his will his every action is determined by his proto- 

 plasmic makeup, plus the modification it has received 

 through experience, plus the relative vigor and quality of the 

 stimulus he receives. 



Is a man on this view less of a responsible agent? It de- 

 pends on what is meant by responsible. I am responsible 

 in the sense of answerable to society if I kill a man. If I kill 

 him without intention or knowledge — if, for instance, my 

 foot sets a stone rolhng that starts an avalanche — then 

 society decides that there is no evidence that my freedom 

 imperils it and nothing is done. If I kill in self-defense society 

 decides that my reaction is, on the whole, not prejudicial or 

 disadvantageous to it and I am set free. If I kill on sudden 

 anger society decides, whether rightly or wrongly, that my 

 action does not prove that I may not, by training, gain in- 

 hibitions such that I shall thereafter react more slowly, giv- 

 ing time for other stimuli to play their part. But if I kill 

 after prolonged premeditation, so that there is no question of 

 merely temporary absence of inhibitions or of chance for 

 numerous other stimuli to act, then society decides that my 

 makeup is fundamentally bad and that the acquisition of a 

 new method of reacting is not to be expected and so, prop- 

 erly enough, cuts me off. My name may indeed become a 

 by-word, since society, rather unreasonably, takes that 

 method of designating the combinations of characteristics 

 that are antisocial. But I am not responsible in the sense of 

 "deserving" pain because of the inadequacy of the deter- 

 miners in my protoplasm. I am what the determiners in 

 my two fused germplasms have developed into under the 

 culture which they have experienced during their develop- 

 ment. I am not responsible for my early culture nor for the 

 reactions determined by it; but that culture is partly de- 

 termined by my makeup, as when I find pleasure in the 

 society of bad companions, and partly is imposed by the 



