Morals and the Evolution of Man

by Max Simon Nordau

Now the supporters of free Will may reply that they do not deny that the Will derives its energy from the organism and therefore from the universal source of cosmic energy, and that it makes use of it according to the laws of mechanics; but they assert that the direction in which energy is expended by the Will is freely determined by it; further, that the direction does not affect the amount of energy used, and consequently the Will can act absolutely in accordance with the mechanical laws of the universe and yet can, independently of outside causes, determine the manner in which the energy shall be expended; that is to say, the Will can be free. But this objection is pure sophistry, for the determination of the direction, in so far as it is not mere imagination and therefore ineffective and sterile, but really controls the action, is an expenditure of energy. The controlling power uses up energy and obeys a cause, so we have arrived at the same dilemma again—either the controlling Will is subject to the law of causation, then it is not free; or it is free and is determined by no outside cause, then we must ascribe to it motion without driving power and energy derived from nothing—which is absurd.

No. There is no such thing as Free Will. The concept of freedom itself is an illusion of thought which cannot survey sufficiently extensive connexions. Nothing in the universe is free; all things mutually determine each other. All are cause and effect, and they fit into one another like cog wheels. Everything is linked up and dovetailed. The philosopher's phrase, "Everything is in flux," is the description of the outward appearance of things. Against it we must set the reality which is: "Everything is eternally at rest." For a circumscribed system of motion without beginning or end may mean motion for every individual point which describes the course, but is, as a whole, virtually at rest. Everything that exists, or ever will exist, has its necessary and sufficient cause in that which has always been; the sequence of phenomena has been unalterably determined since all eternity for all eternity; what we call chance is an occurrence for which our ignorance cannot perceive the necessary causes and conditions; past and future would be in the same plane, therefore would be present for an omniscience, which knew and understood the machine of the universe down to its smallest wheel and pin.

One of the logical consequences of this is that, without any miracle or the assumption of any supernatural influences, it would be possible to foretell the most distant events in all their smallest details. An intelligence sufficiently wide and penetrating would, following the strict law of causation, be able to produce all lines of the present with absolute certainty immeasurably far into the future. As everything that ever will be necessarily must be, it virtually exists at present and has always existed; therefore it is only a question of clarity of vision, which however, is denied to man, to see it at any time and to any extent.

The illusion of flux is explicable. Life, which like all world processes is a cyclical motion, is passed in an endless alternation between the shining forth and extinction of consciousness, the bearers of which are an everlasting series of organisms following one another. Every organism lasts a limited time, during which it is carried along an inconceivably small fraction of the tremendous cycle. It sees all the points of this short stretch but once, and does not learn that they are eternally the same. It gathers the false impression that they fly past it, whereas they are at rest and it passes them, until it ceases to be a suitable bearer of consciousness and disappears, making room for a successor. This rigid immutability of the whole Universe is certainly intolerably gruesome to the imagination, but then, every time we look beyond the narrow confines of life and human circumstances, to peep into the infinity and eternity which surrounds us, do not terrifying vistas open up before us?

Not only the religious minded, but many free thinkers, too, have Free Will at heart, though the latter are otherwise guiltless of any mysticism. They claim it in the name of man's dignity, which would be deeply humiliated if we had to confess ourselves the slaves of outside influences, automata moved by universal causation without our having any say in the matter. We are not entitled to such trumpery pride. Let us seek our dignity in our striving for knowledge, in the subjection of our own instincts to the control of our Reason, but not in an imaginary independence of the laws of Nature, whose commands we should oppose in vain.

With Free Will responsibility also disappears. That is obvious. But that means a collapse only for theological Morality. Scientific ethics can manage very well without responsibility. Nay, more; there is no room in it for this concept. In the system of theological Morality responsibility has a transcendental significance. To sum up once more shortly what has been dealt with in detail above: according to this system Morality is a divine command, obedience to, or disregard of which results in salvation or damnation; in order that reward and punishment may be just, one as well as the other must be merited; that implies the assumption that virtue is practised or vice chosen intentionally and with forethought; but this mode of action must be freely willed if man is to be responsible for it before his divine Judge.

Scientific ethics knows nothing of this supernatural dream. In its view Morality is an immanent phenomenon which occurs only within humanity—or to define it more accurately, within humanity organized as a society. It arose from a definite necessity; from the undeniable need of men to unite, so as to be able, in company with one another, shoulder to shoulder, to succeed more easily, or indeed to succeed at all, in the struggle for existence which is too hard for the solitary individual. It has a clearly recognizable aim: to teach man to curb his selfish instincts and to practise consideration for his neighbour, by which means alone peaceable life in common and productive co-operation are possible. The instinct of self-preservation supplies society with the laws of Morality which it imperiously imposes on all its members, and unconditional obedience to which it demands. Society does not dream of saying to the individual: "You are free; you must yourself decide whether you will follow the path of virtue or that of vice." On the contrary, it says to him: "Whether you wish it or not, you must do that which my doctrine of Morality indicates as good and eschew that which it declares to be evil. You have no choice. I tolerate you in my midst only if you submit to the laws of Morality. If you transgress them I shall draw your teeth and claws or destroy you altogether." By discipline lasting many thousands of years society has developed in the individual, though not in all, an organ that watches that his conduct is moral, and this is the conscience. But this is only supplementary to, and representative of, society, which in the main exercises police supervision itself, and sees that in general the moral law is obeyed. It judges all the actions of the individual that come to its knowledge. Conscience only is the competent authority where occurrences are concerned which take place simply in the consciousness of the individual, and which he alone is aware of. Conscience is only too often a lenient judge who acquits the individual too easily and nearly always admits extenuating circumstances. Society does not let him off so lightly; his punishment is certain if he cannot prevent his sin from becoming known.

Responsibility therefore also exists in Morality as understood by sociologists. As far as his intentions are concerned the individual must come to terms with his conscience, which, as a rule, he does not find difficult. For his deeds he must account to society, and it does not ask what took place in his consciousness, but only how his spiritual impulses were manifested. For his deeds, then, he is summoned before society's court of justice and must answer for them without having recourse to the excuse that he acted as he was forced to do by his disposition and the pressure of circumstances, and that he had no choice and could not act otherwise. Though Morality has always been necessary for the life of the community, and though the latter has, under the pressure of the law of self-preservation, always had to make its members strictly subservient to Morality, it has ever had a dim idea that the responsibility of the individual for his actions is only of practical, not of fundamental or ideal significance. It has never pushed investigation as to how far the individual acted freely or not to any great lengths, never attempted to trace it to the foundations of his consciousness, to the inception of the impulses of his Will. Where the lack of freedom was obvious, for instance, where every layman could see there was insanity, the Moral law has been disregarded ever since ancient times, and society has contented itself with protecting itself from the intolerable actions of the lunatic by rendering him harmless. Since positive Law, made concrete in the laws with penal sanctions, was evolved from the universal Moral law, it has admitted the plea of irresponsibility and refrained from exercising its coercive powers where such irresponsibility has been established. In addition to madness, demonstrable coercion and self-defence relieve the individual from responsibility for the crime and render him immune from punishment.

In the course of evolution society has conceded still further limitations of individual responsibility. It willingly admits new knowledge gained by scientific psychology and concedes limited responsibility, not only in case of madness, but in such cases, too, where experts can convincingly prove to the judges, the guardians of its Law, that the individual was in an abnormal condition and affected by morbid influences at the time of the crime. Farther society cannot go, if it does not want to put an end to Moral law and do away altogether with positive law. Concern for its continued existence forbids this. It must leave it to the philosophers to continue the investigation. They must show that the Will is never free, always fettered, not only in the extreme cases of madness or when under the influence of suggestion. They must make it clear that there is only a difference of degree and not of kind between the determining influences under which the individual is constrained to act, and that the causation which binds him proceeds by imperceptible degrees from the delirium of the maniac and the obsession of the abnormal man to the passion, lust and desire of the man with strongly developed instincts, and to the slight stimulus of habits, the colourless judgment and shallow considerations of the ordinary man with a deformed character and no definite features. Society can draw no practical conclusion from the theoretical recognition of the lasting limitation and lack of freedom of the Will, because moral law by its very nature implies coercion, and therefore excludes freedom. Whether the individual submits to the Moral law of his own accord, or because he is forced thereto by the community's powers of coercion, is of no account to society. It deals only with the visible results.

But it is not merely a matter of flat utilitarianism, it is not even unjust, if society, without inquiring whether the Will is free or not, makes the individual responsible for his actions and only makes an exception from this universal rule in extreme cases. Even though his will is subject to the law of causation, and the individual always acts as he must, he nevertheless has a means of keeping within the moral law despite inner impulses and outer pressure, and that is by his judgment and its instrument, inhibition. Like every organic function which is not purely vegetative and therefore beyond the influence of the Will, judgment and inhibition can be strengthened and perfected by methodical exercise, while total neglect of them will weaken and finally atrophy them. The community may demand that each of its members shall devote attention to the development of the natural functions which permit him to discriminate and to suppress any inclination to evil which may appear. It facilitates this duty towards itself and himself for the individual—for it is a question of the increase of his organic efficiency and of his personal worth—by the institutions it founds for the education of youth, by schools which not only impart knowledge, but also form the character, by instruction after the school age, by the honours with which it distinguishes especially excellent persons, thereby holding them up to example. The community prescribes that everyone should acquire a certain minimum of knowledge, and for this purpose forces each individual by law to go to school for a certain number of years. It may and ought to force him also to render himself more capable of obeying the moral law by methodical exercise of his will. Every citizen is responsible to the state for being able to read and write. In this sense the individual is also responsible for sufficiently strengthening his faculty of inhibition to be able to control his selfish, anti-social and immoral desires.