Therefore to cease from all action is impossible. Therefore it is
nonsense to say that if we are creatures of heredity and environment we
shall cease to act.
But, it may be said, a man can cease from action: he has power to kill
himself.
Well: the earth has power to destroy itself if it is caused to destroy
itself. And man cannot destroy himself unless he is caused to destroy
himself.
For the nature of a man--through heredity--is to love life. No man
destroys himself without a cause. He may go mad, he may be in great
grief, he may be disappointed, jealous, angry. But there is always a
cause when a man takes his own life. And, be the cause what it may,
it belongs to environment. So that a man cannot even take his own life
until heredity and environment cause him to do it.
But there is a second argument, to the effect that if we believe
ourselves to be creatures of heredity and environment we shall cease to
make any effort to be good, or to be better than we are.
Those who use such an argument do not understand the nature and power of
environment. Environment is powerful for good as well as for evil.
Well. We have seen that it is impossible for us to cease to act. Now we
are told that we shall cease to act well.
But our acting well or ill depends upon the nature of our heredity and
environment.
If our heredity be good, and if our environment be good, we _must_ act
well: we cannot help it.
If our heredity be bad, and if our environment be bad, we must act ill:
we cannot help it.
"What? Do you mean to say I cannot be good if I try?"
Is it not evident that you must have some good in you if you wish to
try? That good is put there by heredity and environment.
"But even a bad man sometimes tries to be good."
That is slovenly thinking. 'A man who is _all_ bad has no desire for
good. Any man who has a desire for good is not all bad.
Therefore a man who is "bad" never tries to be good, and a man who tries
to be good is not "bad." When it is said that a bad man tries to be good
the idea is that a very imperfect man tries to be rather better.
And he tries to be rather better because heredity or environment causes
him to wish to be rather better.
Before a man can wish to be good he must know what goodness is. All men
are born destitute of knowledge. To know what goodness is he must learn.
All learning is environment.
But when a man knows what is good, and wishes to be good, he will try to
be good. He cannot help trying. And he will try just as hard, and just
as long as his temperament and training cause him to try; and he will
succeed in being just as good as his temperament and training cause him
to be. And his temperament is heredity, and his training is environment.
It does not follow, then, that because a man is that which heredity
and environment make him, he will be nothing, for they will _make_ him
something. It does not follow that he will be bad, for they will make
him good or bad, as they are good or bad.
"Then," exclaims the confused opponent, "the man himself counts for
nothing: he is a mere machine."
No. He is not a "mere machine": he is a mere man; and he counts for just
as much as his heredity and environment amount to, for his heredity and
environment are _he_.
"But to tell a youth that he is a creature of heredity and environment
would discourage him." Not if he understood what was meant. As we want
to get this subject perfectly clear let us put a speech in two ways.
A youth tells his father that he would like to be a painter. The
father's reply may be varied as follows. First, let us suppose the
father says:
"You will be just as good a painter as your heredity and environment
allow, or compel you to be.
"If you have any hereditary talent for the art, so much the better. But
painting requires something more than talent: it requires knowledge, and
practice. The more knowledge and practice you get the better you will
paint. The less hereditary talent you possess, the more knowledge and
practice you will need. Therefore, if you want to be a good painter, you
must work hard."
The second speech would leave out the word hereditary before the word
talent, and would begin, "You will be just as a good a painter as your
talent and industry will make you." Otherwise the speeches would not
differ.
But are we to suppose that the first speech would discourage a boy who
wanted to be a painter? Not at all: if the boy understood what heredity
and environment mean. It tells him that he can only be as good a
painter as _his_ talent and _his_ industry will make him. But it does
not tell him what are the limits of his industry and talent, for nobody
knows what the limits are. That can only be settled by trying.
To know that he cannot get more out of a gold reef than there is in it,
does not discourage a miner. What he wants is to get all there is in it,
and until he wants no more, or believes there is no more, he will keep
on digging.
It is so with any human effort. We all know that we cannot do more than
we can, whether we believe in free will or no. But we do not know how
much we can do, and nobody can tell us. The only way is to try. And we
try just as hard as our nature and our desire impel us to try, and just
as long as any desire or any hope remains.
Not only that, we commonly try when the limit of our attainment is in
sight. For we try to get as near the limit as we can.
For instance. A young man adopts literature as his trade. He knows that
before he dips a pen into a bottle that he will _never_ reach the level
of Shakespeare and Homer. But he tries to do as well as he can. A miner
might be sure that his reef would not yield a million; but he would go
on and get all he could.
So it is in the case of a desire for virtue. A man knows that he cannot
be better than his nature and his knowledge allow him to be. He knows
that he will never be as good as the best. But he wants to be good, and
he tries to be as good as he can. The fact that a private soldier is
not likely to get a commission does not prevent him from trying to get
a sergeant-major's stripes. The knowledge that he is not likely to
get twenty-one bull's-eyes in a match does not prevent a rifleman from
getting all the bull's-eyes he can.
So with our young painter. All desire is hereditary. All knowledge is
environment. The boy wants to be a painter, and he knows that industry
and practice will help to make him a good painter. Therefore he
tries. He tries just as hard as his desire (his heredity) and the
encouragements of his master and his friends (environment) cause him to
try.
We do not say that it is no use trying to be good, no use trying to be
clever. On the contrary, we say that no man can be good or clever unless
he does try; but that his desire to try, his power to try, and
his knowledge of the value of trying are parts of his heredity and
environment A boy says, "I cannot do this sum." His friend says, "Try
again. I had to try six times; but I did it." That encouragement is
environment.
A man says, "I cannot keep steady. I have tried." His friend says, "Yes,
you can. Try again. Keep on trying. Try for your children's sake."
That speech is environment. We advise a weakly lad to try a course of
gymnastics, and encourage him to persevere. That is environment.
In another book of mine, "God and My Neighbour," I said something that
was pounced upon as inconsistent with my belief. One paper asked what I
would give to "cancel that fatal admission." Many critics said in their
haste that I had "given my case away."
But I am so far from regretting that paragraph that I will repeat it
here, and will prove that it is not inconsistent with my belief, and
that it does not "give my case away." The passage is as follows:
I believe that I am what heredity and environment made me. But I know
that I can make myself better or worse if I try. I know that because I
have learnt it, and the learning has been part of my environment.
What is there in that paragraph that is inconsistent with my belief?
"I know"--how do I know anything? _All_ knowledge is from environment.
"I know" (through environment) that I can do something "if I try."
What causes me to try? If I try to write better, or to live better, it
is evident that I wish to write better, or to live better. What makes me
wish? Heredity and environment.
It may be inherited disposition to do the things called good. It may be
love of approbation. Those are parts of my heredity.
It may be that I wish to do the things called good because I have
been taught that I ought to do them. That teaching would be part of
my environment Therefore the desire to be good, or better, and the
knowledge that I can be good, or better, if I try, arise from and belong
to heredity and environment.
"But to try. Does not that show free will?" I have just proved that I
try because I wish to succeed, and that environment has taught me that I
cannot succeed without trying.
"But does not the free will come in when I decide whether to do good or
bad things?" No. For that has already been decided for me by heredity
and environment, which have made me wish to do good things.
So there is nothing wrong with that paragraph. The fault was in my
critics, who had failed to understand the subject upon which they were
trying to argue.
A man can only try if heredity or environment causes him to want to try,
and he can only keep on trying as long as heredity and environment cause
him to keep on.
One man is born with more talent than another. And one man is born
with more industry, or with more ambition, or with more hope, patience,
determination, than another.
And the man who is more ambitious, or more patient, or more hopeful, or
more determined, will try harder, and will try longer than the man who
is less ambitious, or hopeful, or determined.
Heredity settles that.
But the man who has less of the qualities that make one try, may be
spurred on by a teacher, a friend, or a powerful motive, and so may try
harder and longer than the stronger man.
As, for example, a man who has given up trying to succeed in some
enterprise, may fall in love, and then the added desire to marry the
woman he loves, may cause him to try harder than ever, and may lead him
to succeed.
But these things belong to his environment.
Not only that, but they are a proof that environment can move a man when
free will fails. For the man has a free will before he falls in love.
But he loses heart, and does not succeed in his enterprise. But love,
which is environment, supplies a new desire, and he does succeed.
Why does he succeed? Because he wants to marry, and he cannot marry
until he succeeds. This desire to marry comes of environment, and it
rules the will, and compels the will to will a further effort. Is it not
so?
Although we say that man is the creature of heredity and environment,
we do not say that he has no self-control. We only say that his
self-control comes from heredity and environment, and is limited and
controlled by heredity and environment.
He can only "do as he likes" when heredity and environment cause him "to
like," and he can only "do as he likes," so far and so long as heredity
and environment enable him to go on.
A man "can be good if he tries," but not unless heredity and environment
cause him to wish to try.
But for heredity he could not lift a finger: he would not have a finger
to lift. But for environment he could not learn to use a finger. He
could never know good from bad.
We all know that we can train and curb ourselves, that we can weed out
bad habits, and cultivate good habits. No one has any doubt about that.
The question is what causes us to do the one or the other. The answer
is--heredity and environment.
We can develop our muscles, our brains, our morals; and we can develop
them enormously.
But before we can do these things we must _want_ to do them, and we must
know that we _can_ do them, and how to do them; and all knowledge, and
all desire comes from environment and heredity.
A youth wishes to be strong. Why? Say he has been reading Mr. Sandow's
book. He is told there that by doing certain exercises every day he
can very greatly increase his strength. This sets him to work at the
dumb-bells. There may be many motives impelling him. One group form a
general desire to be strong: that is heredity. But the spur that moves
him is Sandow's book, and that spur, and the information as to how to
proceed, are environment.
The youth begins, and for a few months he does the exercises every
morning. But they begin to get irksome.
He is tired, he has a slight cold, he wants to read or write. He
neglects the exercises. Then he remembers that he cannot get strong
unless he perseveres and does the work regularly, and he goes on again.
Or he neglects his training for awhile, until he meets another youth who
has improved himself. Then he goes back to the dumb-bells.
Is not this, to our own knowledge, the kind of thing that happens to us
all, in all kinds of self-training, whether it be muscular, mental, or
moral?
What causes the fluctuations? Let the reader examine his own conduct,
and he will find a continual shifting and conflict of motives. And he
will never find a motive that cannot be traced to his temperament or
training, to his heredity or environment.
A man wants to learn French, or shorthand. Let him ask himself why he
wants to learn, and he will find the motive springs from temperament or
training. He begins to learn. He finds the work difficult and irksome.
He has to spur himself on by all kinds of expedients. Finally he learns,
or he gives up trying to learn; and he will find that his action
has been settled by a contest between his desire to be able to write
shorthand, or to speak French, and his dislike to the drudgery of
learning; or that his action has been settled by a conflict between
his desire to know shorthand, or French, and his desire to do something
else. He does the thing he most desires to do. And all desire comes from
heredity or from environment.
Every member of his body, every faculty, every impulse is fixed for him
by heredity; every kind of knowledge, every kind of encouragement or
discouragement comes of environment.
I hope we have made that quite clear, and now we may ask to what it
leads us.
And we shall find that it leads us to the conclusion that everything a
man does is, at the instant when he does it, the only thing he _can_ do:
the only thing _he_ can do, _then_.
"What! do you mean to say-?" Yes. It is startling. But let us keep our
heads cool and our eyes wide open, and we shall find that it is quite
true, and that it is not difficult to understand.