the responsibility for his deeds still lies
with Macbeth, Shakespeare makes his first act after this interview one
for which his tempters gave him not a hint--the slaughter of Macduff's
wife and children.

To all this we must add that Macbeth himself nowhere betrays a suspicion
that his action is, or has been, thrust on him by an external power. He
curses the Witches for deceiving him, but he never attempts to shift to
them the burden of his guilt. Neither has Shakespeare placed in the
mouth of any other character in this play such fatalistic expressions as
may be found in _King Lear_ and occasionally elsewhere. He appears
actually to have taken pains to make the natural psychological genesis
of Macbeth's crimes perfectly clear, and it was a most unfortunate
notion of Schlegel's that the Witches were required because natural
agencies would have seemed too weak to drive such a man as Macbeth to
his first murder.

'Still,' it may be said, 'the Witches did foreknow Macbeth's future; and
what is foreknown is fixed; and how can a man be responsible when his
future is fixed?' With this question, as a speculative one, we have no
concern here; but, in so far as it relates to the play, I answer, first,
that not one of the things foreknown is an action. This is just as true
of the later prophecies as of the first. That Macbeth will be harmed by
none of woman born, and will never be vanquished till Birnam Wood shall
come against him, involves (so far as we are informed) no action of his.
It may be doubted, indeed, whether Shakespeare would have introduced
prophecies of Macbeth's deeds, even if it had been convenient to do so;
he would probably have felt that to do so would interfere with the
interest of the inward struggle and suffering. And, in the second place,
_Macbeth_ was not written for students of metaphysics or theology, but
for people at large; and, however it may be with prophecies of actions,
prophecies of mere events do not suggest to people at large any sort of
difficulty about responsibility. Many people, perhaps most, habitually
think of their 'future' as something fixed, and of themselves as 'free.'
The Witches nowadays take a room in Bond Street and charge a guinea; and
when the victim enters they hail him the possessor of L1000 a year, or
prophesy to him of journeys, wives, and children. But though he is
struck dumb by their prescience, it does not even cross his mind that he
is going to lose his glorious 'freed