We cannot, as Mr. Marson pointed out in his article, "blame" environment; but we can attribute evils to the action of environment, and we can change the environment, always provided that heredity and environment have endowed us with the needful knowledge and brains for the purpose.
Let us look at the facts. There is a very terrible disease called diphtheria. It is caused by a small fungoid bacillus, and it has killed myriads of children, and caused much suffering and grief.
Do we blame "the vegetable bacillus"? No. We cannot blame a bacillus.
So I say we cannot blame diphtheria for killing children. No sane person ever suggested blame in such a case. But do we take any the less trouble to fight against diphtheria?
We do not "blame" a rat for eating our chickens, nor a boat for capsizing in a breeze, nor a lunatic for setting fire to a house, nor a shark for eating a sailor. But has any sane person ever suggested that we should not try to keep rats out of the henhouse, nor to ballast a faulty boat, nor restrain a madman from playing with fire, nor to rescue a sailor from a shark?
Mr. Marson asks ironically whether a social system "can be naughty," whether a social system may be praised logically, blamed logically, and held responsible logically.
I reply that a social system cannot be logically "blamed," any more than a shark, a disease, a fool can be logically blamed. But a social system may be approved or disapproved, and may be altered and abolished.
We cannot "blame" a man's environment, in the strict meaning of the word. But we may attribute a man's crime, or shame, or ruin to his environment.
We do not blame prussic acid for being lethal; but we do not allow chemists to sell it in large quantities to every casual stranger. Why? Because it is poison.
Well, the influenza bacillus is poison, falsehood is poison, vice is poison, greed and vanity and cruelty are poison; and it behooves us to destroy those poisons, and so to improve our social system and the environment of our fellow-men.