Free-will and morality.

hypothesis of the mind (like the supposed weathercock) being simultaneously impressed-in a sort of miraculous manner with a similar desire and compulsion, is a purely gratuitous hypothesis. But the case is not even fairly stated. For granting that our consciousness of our existence tells us nothing of how we began to exist or where we came from, our consciousness of willing does tell us when it began and whence it proceeded. It cannot be said with any truth, then, that we are conscious of willing in the same way as we are conscious of existing. The true statement of what consciousness tells us when we will anything, is not that we are in a state of willing, but that we are in the act of willing. Indeed, our consciousness tells us that no other act we perform—whether of imagining, believing, thinking, or anything else—is even nearly so much our own act as is our act of willing. But besides all this, Bayle's weathercock actually points against the truth of what he has urged. He supposed it to be at the same time both in the act of willing to turn to the east, and also actually blown in the very same direction. This is parallel with the coexistence of a desire on the part of the reader to go to Edinburgh, together with his being at the same time seized, carried to the railway station, and sent to Edinburgh by force. In that case his volition and the direction of his journey would coincide; but, nevertheless, his common sense would tell him plainly enough that this coincidence was due to his having both desired to go to Edinburgh, and to his having also been forcibly sent there. What would be true in his case must-accepting, for argument's sake, Bayle's illustration-be true also of the weathercock; and so it would know, clearly enough, that it both wished to turn to the east, and was also carried there, "willy-nilly," by the wind.

Although, then, the great majority of our actions are either acts of merely organic volition or conscious acts of will performed without deliberation, our consciousness plainly tells us that we have, at the least occasionally, a power of voluntarily fixing our attention, and that we can, and more or less often do, make a distinct act of will in

opposition to a dominant impulse-an action the direction of which is due to our own absolute and positive origination. This is free-will, and its existence within us is vouched for by other facts besides the direct facts of consciousness. For, as we have seen in the last chapter, we have a distinct perception of right and wrong-of the merit and demerit of actions—as of something essentially different from either pleasure or utility. This perception is one of the ultimate and primary facts of our intellectual nature. But if there is no such thing as free-will, then all idea of merit or demerit is a dream and a delusion. Our reason abundantly assures us that the common sense of mankind is right in affirming that no moral blame can possibly be attached to even the most injurious actions, if they are performed by persons who have no power of choice, but are compelled to perform them. We may shoot a criminal lunatic when, owing to the circumstances of the case, we have no other means of saving our lives; but, though we kill him, we are so far from thinking him morally culpable, that we may feel sincere sympathy and pity for him. No moral character can possibly attach to actions which are not free, and if no such actions existed, then there could be no such thing as either virtue or demerit in mankind. The declarations of our own conscience, however, plainly inform us that there are such things as culpability and acts deserving moral approbation; and the voice of this internal monitor is, as we shall see in the next chapter, supported and reinforced by the general judgment of mankind as evidenced by human language. The action of will causing various good or bad actions to be frequently repeated, occasions the development of good or bad habits, since, as we have seen,* our powers and energies are increased by exercise. To a certain extent, there is an analogy between our habits of life and the instinctive actions of animals, and thus we may be said ourselves to make, or at least to develop, some of our own moral instincts.

Anthro

pology a

study,

CHAPTER XIX.

MANKIND.

All men have essentially the same intellectual nature.

Anthropology a transitional study, partly subjective, partly objective-Bodily unity-Antiquity of man-Art-Language-Counting-Truth and beauty-Ethics-Religion-Unity of man's nature-Degradation-Human creations-Infancy.

HITHERTO we have been almost exclusively occupied with transitional the study either of our minds directly, or of ourselves as partly sub individuals, possessed of powers and faculties the nature of which we have examined by introspection. In the next section we shall enter upon a brief survey of the world around us, for the comprehension of which we have mainly to rely upon testimony and common sense.

jective, partly ob jective.

The present chapter, devoted to the study of mankind, or anthropology, forms a transition from the investigation of matters mainly subjective, to objective studies. For, in the study of mankind, we are still occupied with ourselves in so far as we are investigating that human nature in which we participate, while at the same time we enter upon matters which can only become known to us by external observation, reasoning, and testimony. In the latter aspect man forms for us a part of that external world which on every side surrounds us; in the former, we have still constantly to refer back to the phenomena revealed to us by introspection.

Mankind at the present moment consists of a great diversity of tribes and races, aggregated partly into larger natural groups, and partly into political aggregations

states or nations. Each tribe, each race and group of races, each state or nation, has, of course, its separate history and its greater or less antiquity, its customs, sentiments, ideas, and language. But the questions which concern us here are questions which regard human beings as one whole. Our object in the present chapter is to ascertain what, in these respects, can be affirmed with the greatest certainty of mankind generally, and it is only with this end in view that attention will be directed to particular facts respecting this or that people at the present time or at antecedent periods.

unity.

All men agree in possessing a nearly identical bodily Bodily structure; that is to say, the differences in this respect which exist between different races are so small that naturalists generally regard mankind as consisting of a single species only; although a few men of science prefer to consider men as constituting a genus made up of a few species. The divergences which are found are slight differences in average size; in relative length of limb; in shape of head and prominence of jaws; in the colour of the skin; in the form and distribution of the hair; in the shape of certain bones, notably those of the pelvis, shin, and heel; in the development of the nose, and in the form of the eyes; and in the relative size of the brain, and in the complexity of the foldings on its surface. No races of men exist as to the human nature of which (estimated by their external form) it is possible to entertain a moment's doubt, nor has it been satisfactorily demonstrated that the offspring of cross-breeds between the more varied races tend to become sterile inter se. As to the past history of our kind, we have been as yet unable to find remains which are probably human, yet so widely different from those of existing man as to occupy a place midway between him and some other kind of known creature, although, of course, this fact affords us no grounds for affirming that such an intermediate form may not be at any moment discovered. The antiquity of man is certainly great as Antiquity measured by the time of which we have certain historical knowledge. The civilizations of Egypt and China extend back for more than six thousand years, but they were prob

of man.

ably preceded by tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of years of unrecorded human existence. Nevertheless, no naturalist supposes man to have preceded the ages during which the Tertiary strata were deposited, and those most disposed to credit him with a great antiquity regard him as a product of Miocene times. Some naturalists (as, for example, the late Professor Paul Gervais and Mr. George Busk) have deemed the Esquimaux to be survivors of such very ancient races. Everywhere man exists, and, so far as we know, has existed, in a more or less social state, at the least in the form of small tribes or families, sometimes habitually wandering from place to place in search of food. Cannibalism has been a widespread, perhaps once almost universal, custom.

are known to exist who are ignorant of the use of fire,t and ancient remains prove that its knowledge is so old that we are yet unable to affirm the certain past existence of men unacquainted with its use, though such there in all probability once were. All existing men supplement their natural bodily powers by the use of tools and weapons, and this is so universal a characteristic of our kind that it was the discovery of rude flint implements which first clearly proved the antiquity of man to have been so very much greater than was previously supposed, and such implements are still the only evidences of man's ancient existence over wide tracts of the earth's surface. The weapons of very rude savages are commonly ornamented, and art in a rudimentary form may be said to be universally diffused. Even the unknown manufacturers of the rude, unpolished flint implements, made drawings in outline of various animals. We owe to them the only authentic representation of the mammoth, or extinct elephant, scratched on one of that animal's bones. The rudest men can distinguish between the natural and the artificial; they know well enough the difference between the implements

*As to these and other strata, see below, ch. xx., "The Earth's Crust." In illustration of the ease with which errors arise from hasty observations and inferences, may be cited Wilkes's "Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition" (1838-42). Therein the natives of one of the islands visited are said to have been ignorant of fire, though, as Mr. Tylor remarks, “curiously enough," particulars are given in the same work which show that in the same island "fire was in reality a familiar thing."