Further figures might be given showing that the majority of criminals belong to the laboring classes, and that the incentives to crime are want and absence of training amongst the working people, and dissipation and luxury in higher ranks of society. We will, however, content ourselves with what has been stated, and proceed to discuss the conclusions which materialists draw from such data.
At the present day, materialists conclude, from such facts and figures as these, that the volition of man is not free. They pretend that it is impossible to explain the regularity with which acts, seemingly voluntary and deliberate, are elicited, unless we accept the conclusion that free will is a mere fiction of the imagination, and that science inevitably forces us to the conviction that all human acts depend on what they designate a law of nature. They say that such a degree of order in the occurrence of human acts could not possibly result from the unbiased power of self-determination. They reject the distinction between nature and man as a being partly spiritual, and consider him as a purely material product of nature, subjected, like animals, plants, and minerals, to general laws, without the power of exercising the slightest influence on his own destiny. And this outcry against free-will is raised by men in every department of science, by naturalists, philosophers, historians, physicians, and jurists. Says Buckle, in his History of English Civilization, speaking of the evidences of moral statistics:
"In certain conditions of society a large proportion of men must put an end to their own existence. Such is the general law. The special inquiry as to who is to commit the crime depends, of course, upon particular laws, which, in their united energies, must obey the general law to which they are subordinate. And the force of the higher law is so irresistible that neither the attachment to life nor the dread of the future can to any degree hinder its execution."
Dankwart declares boldly:
"Man is not a free agent. He is just as little responsible for any of his deeds as a stone which, in obedience to the law of gravitation, falls upon one's head. The criminal act was the necessary development of a law of nature."
What are we to say in reply to these attacks? Are the facts of statistics really so decisive and convincing as to compel us to abandon the time-honored dogma of Free-Will, to which the noblest and loftiest minds of all ages have so tenaciously adhered? Can those imposing arrays of figures operate in us to the conviction that, when a man contracts marriage, commits a crime, puts an end to his own life, or performs any other act, he necessarily follows a universal law of nature, and cannot, therefore, be held responsible for his deed? Do the acts of men enter into the economy of nature like ebb and flow of tide, day and night, summer and winter? It is not our purpose to enter into deep philosophical disquisitions on free-will. Its materialist adversaries ignore all philosophical speculation. They occupy themselves exclusively with facts—visible, palpable facts—and upon this vantage-ground we intend to oppose them. Our task, then, in the present instance, is to demonstrate that the conclusions drawn from the given premises are unwarranted and erroneous; that the regularity in the recurrence of certain acts can be satisfactorily accounted for by other causes, without having recourse to a mysterious law of nature; and lastly, that there are many facts which, even without free-will, are problems not less difficult to solve.
In examining the method by which our adversaries draw inferences from facts, we shall find that their logic is in contradiction to all the laws of correct thinking. "Not all acts are free, therefore some acts are not free," is a proper conclusion; "but some acts are not free, therefore all acts are not free;" who would admit such a conclusion? As an illustration, let us take another example from statistics. According to the testimony of statistics, of 908,000 families in Belgium, only 89,630 were in good circumstances in the year 1857. 373,000 were in a very straitened condition; 446,000 were in downright misery. In all probability, the same relative situation may be found existing through a series of years. Now, what would the enemies of free-will say to the following reasoning: "In Belgium, the masses are in poverty, therefore all Belgians are poor; affluence does not exist at all in Belgium"? Is not the following reasoning of theirs identically the same: "In marriages, suicides, crimes, and other human acts, the influence of free-will is imperceptible, as shown by statistics; therefore, these acts are not free; therefore, the influence of free-will is impossible in all acts; there is no free-will at all"? We might even, for argument's sake, grant—which, of course, we do not—that the above-mentioned acts are not free, without thereby doing away with free-will in numberless other human acts.
But this is not the only logical blunder made by our opponents. They infer from the deed to the volition. "The deed is not free, therefore neither is the volition." Do the deed and the volition always correspond so perfectly that we may, under all circumstances, infer from the former to the latter? The very fact that in trials before courts extenuating circumstances are so strongly insisted upon, is proof positive that the deed and the volition are not always identical. It is a long way from deliberation to decision, and from decision to execution. We may not more infer from the deed to the volition than from the volition to the deed. How absurd to infer from the volition to the deed! And should the reverse be more logical?