94 
But all men do not share in this recoil of Fichte. Even 
Bishop Butler teaches that, so far as human conduct is con- 
cerned, the theories of free will and necessity bring us to the 
same practical issue. But even free will cannot imply the 
production of events without antecedents. Free will must be 
consistent with reasons. And, on the other hand, the voice of 
this united assembly would say that I can lift my arm if I wish to 
do so. The wish then, or, if you please, the man is the decisive 
element. But what and whence is the wish or the man? At 
the starting of this question Prof. Tyndall falls back upon the 
axiomatic affirmation with which he began. “ As stated at the 
beginning of this discourse, my physical and intellectual tex- 
tures were woven for me, not by me. Processes in the conduct 
or regulation of which I had no share have made me what I 
am. Here surely, if anywhere, we are as clay in the hands of 
the potter/’ The age finds each man to be the product of all 
the ages before — it will make of us what the combined forces 
of all the present can make out of that past added to this 
present. Robert Owen’s doctrine that man is the product of 
circumstances was correct if you count the past circumstances 
along with the present. Every court of justice makes allow- 
ances for hereditary tendency to insanity. An acute governor 
of one of the largest prisons in England informed Prof. Tyndall 
that he should divide all prisoners into three classes — the good, 
who ought not to have been convicted — the hopeful, who under 
more favourable training may be moulded to something good — 
and the hopeless, who might as well bo “ put compendiously 
under water,” as tortured with punishment of any kind. The 
observations and testimony of such men with individuals are, 
however, of little significance compared with Darwin’s specu- 
lations, which have at last convinced even “ the clerical world ” 
that “ the progenitors of this assembly,” when traced very far 
into the past, “ could not be called human.” These changes, to 
which each generation adds its slender contribution, are owing 
to what we in our ignorance are obliged to call “ accidental 
variation,” and secondly, to a law of f ‘ heredity in the passing of 
which our suffrages were not collected.” That tho process is 
one of amelioration is ascribed by Matthew Arnold to “ a power 
not ourselves which works for righteousness,” “ when with 
characteristic felicity and precision he lifts the question into 
the free air of poetry, but not out of tho atmosphere of truth.” 
But does not this law of progress under hereditary influences 
give freo sanction to crime by removing all exposure to punish- 
ment ? Not in tho least. Society says frankly to the unfor- 
tunate inheritor of irresistible proclivities to evil: We must 
imprison or hang you that we may give greater energy to 
