excuse for evil and for
evil men which the necessitarian theory will furnish, disguise it in
what fair-sounding words we will. So plain this is, that common-sense
people, and especially English people, cannot bring themselves even to
consider the question without impatience, and turn disdainfully and
angrily from a theory which confuses their instincts of right and wrong.
Although, however, error on this side is infinitely less mischievous
than on the other, no vehement error can exist in this world with
impunity; and it does appear that in our common view of these matters we
have closed our eyes to certain grave facts of experience, and have
given the fatalist a vantage ground of real truth which we ought to have
considered and allowed. At the risk of tediousness we shall enter
briefly into this unpromising ground. Life and the necessities of life
are our best philosophers if we will only listen honestly to what they
say to us; and dislike the lesson as we may, it is cowardice which
refuses to hear it.

The popular belief is, that right and wrong lie before every man, and
that he is free to choose between them, and the responsibility of choice
rests with himself. The fatalist's belief is that every man's actions
are determined by causes external and internal over which he has no
power, leaving no room for any moral choice whatever. The first is
contradicted by facts, the second by the instinct of conscience. Even
Spinoza allows that for practical purposes we are obliged to regard the
future as contingent, and ourselves as able to influence it; and it is
incredible that both our inward convictions and our outward conduct
should be built together upon a falsehood. But if, as Butler says,
whatever be the speculative account of the matter, we are practically
forced to regard ourselves as free, this is but half the truth, for it
may be equally said that practically we are forced to regard each other
as _not_ free; and to make allowance, every moment, for influences for
which we cannot hold each other personally responsible. If not,--if
every person of sound mind (in the common acceptation of the term) be
equally able at all times to act right if only he _will_,--why all the
care which we take of children? why the pains to keep them from bad
society? why do we so anxiously watch their disposition, to determine
the education which will best answer to it? Why in cases of guilt do we
vary our moral censure according to the oppo