770 Dynamic Theory. 



erly punished, when the reason assigned for it, very improperly, was 

 that they were to blame ; by which charge the idea is rather vaguely 

 conveyed that the criminal act was performed without motive. It used 

 to be said that criminal acts were done at the instigation of the devil. 

 Sometimes it is said they are done from motives, but they are wrong 

 motives ; and the criminal has been thought worthy of blame for the 

 motives by which he was actuated. Blame is the expression of an un- 

 easy and inharmonious state of cerebral action produced in ourselves by 

 the acts of another ( or the acts of other organs in ourselves ). If a 

 person is blameworthy for the motives which actuate him, then the per- 

 son entertaining the feeling which blames may be called to answer why 

 he has such feeling; and he often is, because it frequently happens that 

 what one persons blames, another commends. The person who blames, 

 justifies himself by the plea that he was compelled to by the motives, and 

 so also may the culprit justify himself. We cannot then logically blame 

 a man for the motives which operate him, nor yet for the state of feel- 

 ing which his action produces in us. But properly analyzed, this latter 

 is what we do, since our feelings, and not his motions, are the direct an- 

 tecedent cause of the expression of blame. But since our feelings are 

 the resultant sensations produced by the other man's action upon our 

 own organs of internal sensation, these organs of ours share the respon- 

 sibilit} 7 for our state of feeling, and may therefore be as much to 

 "blame " as the motives of the other man. 



On the whole, it is obvious that we cannot help the feelings prompted 

 in us by the acts of another, and that no more could he, under the cir- 

 cumstances, help the feelings prompted in him which led to the actions 

 which disturbed us. The actions on both sides are necessary, and could 

 not, under the circumstances, have happened otherwise. But the action 

 of the criminal in provoking the resentment, blame and retaliation of 

 society, tends to put a check upon itself, because the resentment and re- 

 taliation of society bring pain to the criminal, the experience and mem- 

 ory of which become motives in future for restraining the commission 

 of crime. A perception of this fact by society, causes the expression 

 of resentment and measures of retaliation to be reduced to certainty 

 and definiteness ; and so the foundation of the criminal code is laid. 

 And so the effect is to supply the criminally inclined with motives to 

 restrain his criminal actions. It is evident that this procedure would be 

 absurd if men's wills were not subject to the control of motives. What- 

 ever theory of freedom we may think we entertain, we know as a prac- 

 tical fact, that all men are in bondage to motives of one sort or another, 

 and a large part of our intercourse with others is for the purpose of 

 binding them in some particular for our benefit. It is sometimes said 

 a man is free to choose. This is not quite true. He is free to take the 



