We are told that _every_ man has a free will, and a conscience.
Now, if Williams had been Robinson, that is to say if his heredity and
his environment had been exactly like Robinson's, he would have done
exactly as Robinson did.
It was because his heredity and environment were not the same that his
act was not the same.
Both men had free wills. What made one do what the other refused to do?
Heredity and environment. To reverse their conduct we should have to
reverse their heredity and environment.
Let us take another familiar instance. Bill Hicks is a loafer. He
"doesn't like work." He used to work, but he was out on strike for six
months, and since then he has done no more work than he could help. What
has changed this man's free will to work into a free will to avoid work?
Hicks used to work. He was a steady young fellow. Why did he work? He
did not know. He had always worked. He went to work just as he ate his
dinner, or washed his hands. But he did not think much. He lived chiefly
by custom; habit. He did things because he had always done them, and
because other men did them. He knew no other way.
He worked. He worked hard: for nine hours a day. He got twenty-five
shillings a week. He paid twelve shillings for lodging and board, and
he spent the rest, as others spent it, on similar boots and coats, and
a better suit, and the usual amount of beer and tobacco, and the usual
music hall.
He thought those things were necessary, or rather he felt that they
were.
He did not love his work. There was no interest in it. It was hard, it
was dirty, there was no credit to be got by doing it. It was just an
affair of habit--and wages.
Then he was half a year on strike. He had less food, and less beer, and
no music hall. But he had a very great deal less work, and more liberty,
and--no "boss".
Men love liberty. It is a love that is bred in the race. They do not
love shovelling clay into a barrow, and pushing the barrow up a plank.
There is nothing in it that appeals to their humanity: and it is dirty,
and laborious, and it makes a man a prisoner and a slave.
Hicks found that the difference between working and loafing was a
difference of food, clothing, and beer, on the one hand, and on the
other hand, of unpleasant and hard labour.
He found he could do with much less beer and beef, and that liberty
was sweet. He did not think this out. He seldom thought: he was never
trained to think. But the habit of toil was broken, and the habit of
freedom was formed. Also he had found out that he could live without so
much toil, and live more pleasantly, if more sparely.
What had changed the free will of Hicks from a will to work to a will to
loaf? Change of experience: change of environment.
Now Hicks is as lazy, as useless, and as free as a duke.
But, someone asks, "where was his pride; where was his sense of duty;
where was his manhood?" And it seems to me those questions ought to be
put to the duke. But I should say that Bill Hicks' pride and sense of
duty were just overpowered by his love of liberty, his distaste for
soulless toil, and his forgetfulness of the beautiful moral lesson that
a man who will not work like a horse for a pound a week is a lazy beast,
whilst the man who does nothing--except harm--for a hundred thousand a
year, is an honourable gentleman, with a hereditary seat in the House of
Peers.
In fact Hicks had found his heredity too strong for his training. But
what had free will to do with it?
The duke has a free will. Does it ever set him wheeling clay up a plank?
No. Why not? Because, as in the case of Hicks, heredity and environment
cause the duke to love some other.
"But the duke has no need to work." That is how Hicks feels. "But Hicks
could work if he liked." So could the duke. But neither of these men
_can_ "like." That is just what is the matter with them both.
Two boys work at a hard and disagreeable trade. One leaves it, finds
other work, "gets on," is praised for getting on. The other stays at the
trade all his life, works hard all his life, is poor all his life, and
is respected as an honest and humble working man; that is to say, he is
regarded by society as Mr. Dorgan was regarded by Mr. Dooley--"he is a
fine man, and I despise him."
What causes these two free wills to will so differently? One boy knew
more than the other boy. He "knew better." All knowledge is environment.
Both boys had free wills. It was in knowledge they differed:
environment!
Those who exalt the power of the will, and belittle the power of
environment, belie their words by their deeds.
For they would not send their children amongst bad companions or allow
them to read bad books. They would not say the children have free will
and therefore have power to take the good and leave the bad.
They know very well that evil environment has power to pervert the will,
and that good environment has power to direct it properly.
They know that children may be made good or bad by good or evil
training, and that the will follows the training.
That being so, they must also admit that the children of other people
may be made good or bad by training.
And if a child gets bad training, how can free will save it? Or how can
it be blamed for being bad? It never had a chance to be good. That they
know this is proved by their carefulness in providing their own children
with better environment.
As I have said before, every church, every school, every moral lesson is
a proof that preachers and teachers trust to good environment, and not
to free will, to make children good.
In this, as in so many other matters, actions speak louder than words.
That, I hope, disentangles the many knots into which thousands of
learned men have tied the simple subject of free will; and disposes of
the claim that man is responsible because his will is free. But there is
one other cause of error, akin to the subject, on which I should like to
say a few words.
We often hear it said that a man is to blame for his conduct because "he
knows better."
It is true that men do wrong when they know better. Macbeth "knew
better" when he murdered Duncan. But it is true, also, that we often
think a man "knows better," when he does not know better.
For a man cannot be said to know a thing until he believes it.
If I am told that the moon is made of green cheese, it cannot be said
that I _know_ it to be made of green cheese.
Many moralists seem to confuse the words "to know" with the words "to
hear."
Jones reads novels and plays opera music on Sunday. The Puritan says
Jones "knows better," when he means that Jones has been told that it is
wrong to do those things.
But Jones does not know that it is wrong. He has heard someone say that
it is wrong, but does not believe it. Therefore it is not correct to say
that he knows it.
And, again, as to that matter of belief. Some moralists hold that it is
wicked not to believe certain things, and that men who do not believe
those things will be punished.
But a man cannot believe a thing he is told to believe: he can only
believe a thing which he _can_ believe; and he can only believe that
which his own reason tells him is true.
It would be no use asking Sir Roger Ball to believe that the earth is
flat. He _could not_ believe it.
It is no use asking an agnostic to believe the story of Jonah and the
whale. He _could not_ believe it. He might pretend to believe it. He
might try to believe it. But his reason would not allow him to believe
it.
Therefore it is a mistake to say that a man "knows better," when the
fact is that he has been told "better" and cannot believe what he has
been told.
That is a simple matter, and looks quite trivial; but how much ill-will,
how much intolerance, how much violence, persecution, and murder have
been caused by the strange idea that a man is wicked because _his_
reason _cannot_ believe that which to another man's reason seems quite
true.
Free will has no power over a man's belief. A man cannot believe by
will, but only by conviction. A man cannot be forced to believe. You may
threaten him, wound him, beat him, burn him; and he may be frightened,
or angered, or pained; but he cannot _believe_, nor can he be made to
believe. Until he is convinced.
Now, truism as it may seem, I think it necessary to say here that a man
cannot be convinced by abuse, nor by punishment He can only be convinced
by _reason_.
Yes. If we wish a man to believe a thing, we shall find a few words of
reason more powerful than a million curses, or a million bayonets. To
burn a man alive for failing to believe that the sun goes round the
world is not to convince him. The fire is searching, but it does not
seem to him to be relevant to the issue. He never doubted that fire
would burn; but perchance his dying eyes may see the sun sinking down
into the west, as the world rolls on its axis. He dies in his belief.
And knows no "better."