WHAT HAD FREE WILL TO DO WITH IT?
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."