9 
may serve as preliminary to onr analysis, if it be not indeed 
indispensable to it. 
Beginning in each case with the beginnings of our humanity, 
it is clearly impossible to believe in much respon- 
sibility in very young persons. Their exception, to 0 f S them? ents 
some extent, is as much a fact, as the general rule 
of Responsibility for adults can be said to be also a fact 
on the other side. Then, as so large a proportion i. Actual be- 
of mankind never live to maturity, a strict account- gjjjjjjjp a ° f 
ability would seem to be limited to a portion of the countability in 
race ; while obligations of duty should belong to all. each case ’ 
(This is a philosophical as well as moral difficulty. See 
§§ 18 , 164 ) 
11 . But among adults the diversities of condition are so great, 
and the hardships of moral position so considerable, that the 
same law of accountability, even with them, could not always be 
applied. Education and training must at length 2 
have affected every one of them for good or evil, ties from the 
The child of the most prosperous and well-disposed rs ' 
citizen, and the child of the exile from society attaining maturity 
in an atmosphere of crime, may both no doubt be held account- 
able: but few, in fact, will judge them wholly by the same stand- 
ard; especially as what are termed evil influences appear to be 
more powerful than the good. — If we pass from this period of 
early maturity to a later, the phenomena are yet 
more intricate. After certain habits are fixed, men’s advanced m s °ta! 
Sup- £_ ea - ?f it_ ( or 
characters still go on in gradual formation. aabit) 
pose they began ill, and became at length irrevo- 
cably bad, it would be hard to say what their personal 
accountability might amount to ; though they will yet have, 
as a fact , the disapprobation of their fellow men. 4> Question 
Such reflection would seem to enlarge our sphere p 9 or J° 0 f h ^-^ 
of inquiry and oblige the investigation of the in questions of 
nature of Habit , whether good or evil, and accountablllt y* 
its relation to deontology, i.e. to the personal decision of what 
“ ought " to be. (§ 89, 90.) 
12. But can we leave out of consideration the adult multitudes 
who, in different ways, have but partial control over any of 
their present actions — to say nothing of inherited disqualifica- 
tion in some cases, for all strict accountability? 5 . Large 
The position of women, that is half the world, is 
said to embarrass every theory of accountability ; fled account- 
and the ancients very summarily excluded them, ablllty ’ 
and some modern legists are also much inclined to do so. 
Then, add other dependent persons, minors, slaves, the imbe- 
cile, the ignorant, the infirm, the aged , and the difficulties 
