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For whereas the Christian theory of free will and personal responsibility results in established ignorance and injustice, with no visible remedies beyond personal denunciation, the prison, and a few coals and blankets, the Determinist method would result in the abolition of lords and burglars, of slums and palaces, of caste and snobbery.
It is for such reasons that one must labour and re-labour this geographic and determinist aspect of sociology, and this for no merely scientific reason, but also for practical ones.
I am a Socialist, a Determinist, and a Rationalist because I believe that Socialism, Determinism, and Rationalism will be beneficial to mankind. I oppose the Christian religion because I do not think the Christian religion is beneficial to mankind, and because I think it is an obstacle in the way of Humanism.
The assumption at the bottom of every vigorous argument is that the other party might have held other views, and ought to have held other views than those assailed. The position of the determinist in effect is this: You must believe you have no freedom to choose anything, otherwise you are to blame for choosing wrongly.
Suppose some person to persist in playing "Dolly Grey" on the euphonium, or to contract a baneful habit of reciting "Curfew shall not Ring" at evening parties, the Christian believer in Free Will would call him a bad man, and would say he ought to be punished. The philosophic Determinist would denounce the offender's conduct, but would not denounce the offender.
Admit the Determinist theory, and all would be taught to do well, and most would take kindly to the lesson. Because the fact that environment is so powerful for evil suggests that it is powerful for good. If man is what he is made, it behoves a nation which desires and prizes good men to be very earnest and careful in its methods of making them.
But as a Determinist I am bound to say that there ought to be no such things in the world as poverty and ignorance, and one of the contributory causes to ignorance and poverty is the Christian doctrine of free will. Take away from a man all that God gave him, and there will be nothing of him left.
If you wish to realise the immense superiority of the Determinist principles over the Christian religion, you have only to imagine what would happen if the Determinists had a majority as overwhelming as the majority the Christians now hold.
But it is surely a more massive and important fact that if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat, drink, sleep, walk, or smoke a cigarette. Similarly you may say, if you like, that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the reality of the will.
And hence there are perhaps few attitudes so entirely irrational as that which affects to see in a determinist interpretation of man's nature a special reason for optimism.
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