4. By the rewards and punishments, and in general by the moral responsibility which is attached to all our actions when they have been committed knowingly. We do not punish actions which are the result of constraint or ignorance.
5. By the exhortations or counsels we give to others. We do not exhort a man to be warm or cold, not to suffer hunger or thirst, because it is well known that this is not a thing dependent on his will. But we exhort him to be honest, because we believe that he can be so if he wishes.
6. By promises: no one promises not to die, not to be sick, etc., but one promises to be present at a certain meeting, to pay a certain sum of money, on such a day, to such a man, because one feels he can do so unless circumstances over which he has no control prevent.
Prejudices against Liberty.—Although men, as we have seen, may have the sense of liberty very strong, and may show it by their acts, by their approbation or blame, etc., yet, on the other hand, they often yield to the force of certain prejudices which seem to contradict the universal belief we have just spoken of.
1. Character.—The principal one of these prejudices is the often expressed opinion that every man is impelled by his own character to perform the actions which accord with this character, and that there is no help against this irresistible necessity of nature; this is often expressed by the common axiom: “One cannot make himself over again.” The same has also been expressed by the poet Destouches in that celebrated line:
Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop.[4]
Nothing is less exact as a fact and more dangerous as a principle, than this pretended immutability of human character, which, if true, would render evil irremediable and incorrigible.
Experience teaches the contrary. No man is wholly deprived of good and bad inclinations; he may develop the one or the other, as he chooses between them.
2. Habits.—Habits in the long run become, it is true, irresistible. It is a fact which has been often observed; but if, on the one hand, an inveterate habit is irresistible, it is not so in the beginning, and man is thus free to prevent the encroachments of bad habits. It is for this reason that moralists warn us above all against the beginnings of habits. “Beware especially of beginnings,” says the Imitation.
3. Passions.—Passions have especially enjoyed the privilege of passing for uncontrollable and irresistible. All great sinners find their excuse in the fatal allurements of passions. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” says the Gospel. The remarks we have just made touching the habits, may be equally applied to the passions. It is rare that passions manifest themselves all of a sudden, and with that excess of violence which, breaking upon one unexpectedly and like a delirium, assume, indeed, all the appearances of a fatality. But, as a general thing, passions grow little by little. “Some smaller crimes always precede the greater crimes.” It is especially when the first attacks of a passion begin to show themselves that it should be energetically fought down.