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.