Kitabı oku: «Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog»

THE AUTHOR'S APOLOGY

THIS is not a stiff and learned work, written by a professor for professors, but a human book, written in humanity's behalf by a man, for men and women.

I shall not fret you with strange and stilted language, nor weary you with tedious and irksome science, nor gall you with far-fetched theories, nor waste your time in any vain word-twisting nor splitting of hairs.

A plain-dealing man, speaking frankly and simply to honest and plain-dealing readers, I shall trust to common sense and common knowledge and common English to make my meaning clear.

I have been warned that it is easier to write a book on such a theme as this than to get people to read it when written. But I am hopeful, and my hope springs from the living interest and deep significance of the subject.

For in defending the Bottom Dog I do not deal with hard science only; but with the dearest faiths, the oldest wrongs, and the most awful relationships of the great human family, for whose good I strive, and to whose judgment I appeal.

Knowing, as I do, how the hard-working and hard-playing public shun laborious thinking and serious writing, and how they hate to have their ease disturbed or their prejudices handled rudely, I still make bold to undertake this task, because of the vital nature of the problems I shall probe.

The case for the Bottom Dog should touch the public heart to the quick, for it affects the truth of our religions, the justice of our laws, and the destinies of our children and our children's; children.

Much golden eloquence has been squandered in praise of the successful and the good; much stern condemnation has been vented upon the wicked. I venture now to plead for those of our poor brothers and sisters who are accursed of Christ and rejected.

Hitherto all the love, all the honours, all the applause of this? world, and all the rewards of heaven, have been lavished on the fortunate and the strong; and the portion of the unfriended Bottom Dog, in his adversity and weakness, has been curses, blows, chains, the gallows, and everlasting damnation.

I shall plead, then, for those who are loathed and tortured and branded as the sinful and unclean; for those who have hated us and wronged us, and have been wronged and hated by us. I shall defend them for right's sake, for pity's sake, and for the benefit of society and the race. For these also are of our flesh, these also have erred and gone astray, these also are victims of an inscrutable and relentless Fate.

If it concerns us that the religions of the world are childish dreams, or nightmares; if it concerns us that penal laws and moral codes are survivals of barbarism and fear; if it concerns us that our most cherished and venerable ideas of our relations to God and to each other are illogical and savage, then the case for the Bottom Dog concerns us nearly.

If it moves us to learn that disease may be prevented, that ruin may be averted, that broken hearts and broken lives may be made whole; if it inspires us to hear how beauty may be conjured out of loathliness and glory out of shame; how waste may be turned to wealth and death to life, and despair to happiness, then the case for the Bottom Dog is a case to be well and truly tried.

If man's flesh and woman's flesh are merchandise or carrion; if the defiled and trampled souls of innocent children are no more to us than are the trodden blossoms under the feet of swine; if love lies to us and pity is a cheat; if whips and chains and contumely and the gibbet are meet for our sisters and our brothers and if dishonourable ease and beggarly pride and the flatteries of fools are worthy of ourselves, then we have the Yellow Press and the painted altar and the Parliamentary speeches and a selfish heaven and a hell where the worm never dies; and everything is for the best in, this best of all possible worlds.

But because I believe "men needs must love the highest when they see it," because I believe that the universal heart is sweet and sound, because I believe there are many who honour truth and seek happiness and peace for all, I do not fear to plead for the Bottom Dog, nor to ask a patient hearing.

Rightly or wrongly, happily or unhappily, but with all the sincerity of my soul, I shall here deny the justice and reason of every kind of blame and praise, of punishment and reward – human or divine.

Divine law – the law made by priests, and attributed to God – consists of a code of rewards and punishments' for acts called good or bad. Human law – the law made by Kings and Parliaments – consists of a code of punishments for acts called criminal and unlawful.

I claim that men should not be classified as good and bad, but as fortunate and unfortunate; that they should be pitied, and not blamed; helped instead of being punished.

I claim that since we do not hold a man worthy of praise for being born beautiful, nor of blame for being born ugly, neither should we hold him worthy of praise for being born virtuous, nor of blame for being born vicious.

I base this claim upon the self-evident and undeniable fact that man has no part in the creation of his own nature.

I shall be told this means that no man is answerable for his own acts.

That is exactly what it does mean.

But, it will be urged, every man has a free will to act as he chooses; and to deny that is to imperil all law and order, all morality and discipline.

I deny both these inferences, and I ask the reader to hear my case patiently, and to judge it on its merits.

Let us first test the justice of our laws, divine and human: the question of their usefulness we will deal with later.

CHAPTER ONE – THE LAWS OF GOD

DIVINE law says that certain acts are good, and that certain acts are evil; and that God will reward those who do well, and will punish those who do ill. And we are told that God will so act because God is just.

But I claim that God cannot justly punish those, who disobey, nor reward those who obey His laws.

Religious people tell us that God is "The Great First Cause": that God created all things – mankind, the universe, nature and all her laws. Who is answerable for a thing that is caused: he who causes it, or he who does not cause it?

He who causes it is answerable. And God is "The First Great Cause" of all things. And the cause of all things is answerable for all things.

If God created all things He must have created the evil as well as the good.

Who, then, is responsible for good and evil? Only God, for He made them.

He who creates all is responsible for all. God created all: God is responsible for all.

He who creates nothing is responsible for nothing. Man created nothing: man is responsible for nothing.

Therefore man is not responsible for his nature, nor for the acts prompted by that nature.

Therefore God cannot justly punish man for his acts.

Therefore the Divine law, with its code of rewards and punishments, is not a just law, and cannot have emanated from a just God.

Therefore the Christian religion is built upon a foundation of error, and there are no such things as God's wrath, God's pardon; heaven or hell.

That argument has never been answered. But attempts have been made to evade it, and the plea most commonly put forward has been so gracefully expressed by Mr. G. K. Chesterton that I will quote it in his own words:

Now, the question round which this controversy has circled for ages is simply this: Clearly God can, in the exercise of His omnipotence, give part of Himself to His creatures; can give His strength to the bull, or His beauty to the lily. Could God possibly, in the exercise of His omnipotence, give to one of His creatures some portion of that other quality of His – His originating power, His power of primal invention, this making things from nothing or Himself? If God can do all things, can He not make man free? Can He not give man the power to create actions as God creates stars? He can give His force; can He give a little of his sovereignty? Can He, in short, create a kind of little God – an "imago Dei?"

The answer to that quaint piece of reasoning is that it begs the question. For I do not say that God cannot give to man any power He chooses; but that God is responsible, and man is not responsible, for the nature and the acts of any power by God bestowed.

If man did not invent, nor create himself; if man did not create "the power" bestowed upon him by God; if man did not bestow that power upon himself, how can man be responsible for the power or for its acts?

God not only created man; He created the material of which man was made, and the laws of the universe into which man was introduced.

God is the "First Great Cause": He created all things: the evil and the good. How can God blame man for the effects of which God is the cause?

For the defeat of all Christian apologists it is not necessary for me to add another word; the argument is invincible as it stands. But for the reader's sake it may be as well to deal rather more fully with what may be to him a new and startling idea. Let us then return to Mr. Chesterton's plea.

God is said to give to man a "power": a power which, Mr. Chesterton says, God "made out of Himself." And this power will create thoughts, will create actions as God creates stars.

But we see that man cannot create the thoughts nor cause the actions until God gives him the "power." Then it is the "power" that creates the thoughts or acts. Then it is not man, but the "power" – the power God made out of Himself and bestowed upon man – that creates the thoughts or acts. Then the "power" is a kind of lord or ruler made by God, and put by God over man, as a rider is placed upon a horse, or a pilot on a ship. Then man is no more responsible for the acts or the thoughts of this ruling power than a horse is responsible for the acts of a jockey, or a ship for the acts of a pilot.

In fact, the "power" given by God to man is only another name for the "will of God," or the "power of God"; and if man's acts are ruled, or created, by the will or power of God, how can God justly punish man for those acts?

If God created man as well as this imaginary "power" which God is said to give to man, God is responsible for the acts of both.

It is claimed by others that man is responsible to God for his acts because God gave him "reason," or because God gave him a "conscience," or because God gave him a "will" to choose.

But these words, "conscience," "reason," and "will," are only other names for Mr. Chesterton's imaginary "power."

Let us be careful to keep our thoughts quite clear and unentangled. If we speak of "will," or "power," or "reason," as a thing "given to man," we imply that "will," or "power," is a thing outside of man, and not a part of him.

Having failed to saddle man with responsibility for himself, our opponents would now make him responsible for some "power" outside himself. The simple answer is that man made neither himself nor his powers, and that God made man and the power given to man; therefore God and not man is responsible. Conscience and reason and the "power" are rulers or guides given to man by God. God made these guides or rulers.

These guides must be true guides, or false guides: they must be good or bad.

God is all-knowing, as well as all-powerful. Not only has He power to create at will a true guide or a false guide, but He knows when He creates a guide, and when He bestows that guide upon man, whether it will be a true or a false guide. Therefore, when God created the reason or the conscience and gave it to man, He knew whether the reason or the conscience would guide man right or wrong. If the power made and bestowed by God leads man wrongly, it is leading man as God willed and knew it would lead him. How, then, can God justly blame man for the acts that reason or power "creates"?

God creates a number of good propensities, and a number of evil propensities, packs them up in a bundle and calls them "man." Is the skinful of propensities created and put together by God responsible for the proportion of good and evil powers it comprises?

But then Mr. Chesterton suggests that God puts over the bundle a "power" of control. That power controls man for evil: as God must have known it would. Is the bundle of God's making responsible for the failure of the power God made and sent to manage it? God must have known when He created and put the "power" in control that it would fail.

Tell me now, some wise philosopher, or great divine, or learned logician, which is the man? Is it the good propensities, or the evil propensities, or the power of control? And tell me how can any one or all of these be responsible to the God who invented them, who created them, who joined them together; who made and united them, knowing they would fail?

Here is a grand conception of an "all-wise," "all-powerful," perfectly "just" God, who creates a man whom He knows must do evil, gives him a guide who cannot make him do well, issues commands for him to act as God has made it impossible for him to act, and finally punishes him for failing to do what God knew from the first he was incapable of doing.

And the world is paying millions of money, and bestowing honours and rewards in profusion upon the learned and wise and spiritual leaders who teach it to believe such illogical nonsense as the above.

When we turn from the old idea of instantaneous creation to the new idea of evolution, the theories about "God's mercy" and "God's wrath" are still more impossible and absurd.

For now we are to believe that God, the "First Great Cause," "in the beginning" created not man and beast, and forest and sea, and hill and plain, but "matter," and "force," and "law."

Out of the matter and force God made, working to the law God made, there slowly developed the nebulæ, the suns, the planets.

Out of the same matter and force, changed in form by the working of God's laws, there slowly developed the single-celled jelly-like creature from which, by the working of God's laws, all other forms of life have since evolved.

Out of matter and force, working to God's laws, man has been evolved.

Is there any step in the long march of evolution from the first creation of matter and force to the evolution of man, when the jelly speck, or the polyp, or the fish, or the reptile, or the beast, or the ape, or the man, had power to change, or to assist, or to resist the working of the laws God made?

Is there any step in the long march of evolution, any link in the long chain of cause and effect, when any one of the things or beings evolved by law working on matter and force could by act or will of their own have developed otherwise than as they did?

Is it not plain that man has developed into that which he is by slow evolution of matter and force, through the operation of divine laws over which he had no more control than he now has over the revolution of the suns in their orbits?

How, then, can we believe that man is to blame for being that which he is?

Is there any quality of body or of mind that has not been inevitably evolved in man by the working of God's laws?

You are not going to tell me that I am answerable or blame-able for the nature of matter and force, nor for the operations of God's laws, are you?

You will not suggest that I am responsible for the creation: so long ago, and I so new, so weak, so small!

God, when He created matter and force and law, knew the nature of matter and force, and the power and purpose of law. He knew that they must work as He had made and meant them to work. He knew that we must be as His agents must make us.

Will He punish or reward us, then, for the acts of His agents: the agents He made and controlled? Absurd.

But, it may be urged, "man has a soul." So! He got that soul from God. God made the soul and fixed its powers for good and evil.

It is the soul, then, that is responsible, is it? But the soul did not create itself, and can only act as God has ordained that it shall and must act.

If man is not to blame for his own acts he is not to blame for the acts of his soul; and for the same reason.

"Soul," or "man," "reason," or "conscience," responsibility lies with the causer, and not with the thing caused.

And God is "The First Great Cause," and how then can God justly punish any of His creatures for being as He created them?

It is impossible. It is unthinkable. But upon this unthinkable and impossible absurdity the whole code of divine laws is built.

Therefore the Christian religion is untrue, and man is not responsible to God for his nature nor for his acts.

CHAPTER TWO – THE LAWS OF MAN

COMMON law and common usage all the world over hold men answerable for their acts, and blame or punish them when those acts transgress the laws of custom.

Human law, like the divine law, is based upon the false idea that men know what is right and what is wrong, and have power to choose the right.

Human law, like divine law, classifies men as good and bad, and punishes them for doing "wrong."

But men should not be classified as good and bad, but as fortunate and unfortunate, as weak and strong.

And the unfortunate and weak should not be blamed, but pitied; should not be punished but helped.

The just and wise course is to look upon all wrong-doers as we look upon the ignorant, the diseased, the insane, and the deformed.

Many of our wrong-doers are ignorant, or diseased, or insane, or mentally deformed. But there are some who are base or savage by nature. These should be regarded as we regard base or savage animals: as creatures of a lower order, dangerous, but not deserving blame nor hatred. And this is the sound view, as I shall show, because these unhappy creatures are nearer to our brutish ancestors than other men, the ancient strain of man's bestial origin cropping out in them through no fault of their own.

Religion says man is the product of God; science says he is the product of "heredity" and "environment." The difference does not matter much to my case. The point is that man does not create himself, and so is not to blame for his nature, and, therefore, is not to blame for his acts.

For man did not help God in the act of his creation, nor did he choose his own ancestors.

"What! do you mean to say that the ruffian, the libertine, and the knave are not to be blamed nor punished for any of the vile and cruel acts they perpetrate?" asks "the average man."

Yes. That is what I mean. And that is not a new and startling "craze," as many may suppose, but is a piece of very ancient wisdom; as old as the oldest thought of India and of Greece. In the Bhagavad-gita it is written:

He sees truly who sees all actions to be done by nature alone, and likewise the self not the doer.

And Socrates said:

It is an odd thing that if you had met a man ill-conditioned in body you would not have been angry; but to have met a man rudely disposed in mind provokes you.

Neither am I unsupported to-day in my heresies. Most theologists are opposed to me, but most men of science are with me: they look upon man as a creature of "heredity" and "environment."

What a man does depends upon what he is; and what he is depends upon his "breed" and his "experience."

We admit that no two men are quite alike. We should not expect men who are unlike in nature and in knowledge to do like acts. Where the causes are different it is folly to expect identical effects.

Every man is that which his forbears (his ancestors) and his experiences (his environment) have made him. Every man's character is formed partly by "heredity" (breed, or descent) and partly by "environment" (experience, or surroundings). That is to say, his character depends partly upon the nature of his parents, and partly upon the nature of his experience.

He comes into the world just as his ancestors have made him. He did not choose his ancestors; he had nothing to do with the moulding of their natures. Every quality, good or bad, in his own nature, has been handed down to him by his forbears, without knowledge or consent.

How can we blame the new-born or unborn baby for the nature and arrangement of the cells – which are he?

Born into the world as he was made, he is a helpless infant, dependent upon his nurses and his teachers. He did not choose his nurses, nor his teachers; he cannot control their conduct towards him, nor test the truth nor virtue of the lessons he learns from them.

He grows older the nature he inherited from his ancestors is modified, for better or for worse, by the lessons and the treatment given to him by his nurses, his companions, and his teachers.

So, when he becomes a man he is that which his forbears and his fellow creatures have made him.

That is to say, he is the product of his heredity and his environment. He could not be otherwise.

How, then, can it be just to blame him for being that which he must be?

But, it may be objected, a man has power to change, or to conquer, his environment; to train, or to subdue, his original nature.

That depends upon the strength of his original nature (which his ancestors handed down to him) and of his environment – which consists, largely, of the actions of his fellow-creatures.

A man has power to do that which his forbears have made him able to do. He has power to do no more.

He has certain powers given him by his forbears, which may have been developed or repressed by his surroundings. With those powers, as modified by the influences surrounding and outside himself, he may do all that his nature desires and is able to do. Up to the limit of his inherited powers he may do all that his environment (his experiences) have taught or incited him to do.

To speak of a man conquering his environment is the same thing as to speak of a man swimming against a stream. He can swim against the stream if he has strength and skill to overcome the stream. His strength is his heredity: his skill is the result of his environment. If his strength and skill are more than equal to the force of the stream he will conquer his environment; if the stream is too strong for him he will be conquered by his environment.

His acts, in short, depend wholly upon his nature and his environment: neither of which is of his own choosing. Of this I will say more in its place.

A man gets his nature from his forbears, just as certainly as he gets the shape of his nose, the length of his foot, and the colour of his eyes from his forbears.

As we do not blame a man for being born with red or black hair, why should we blame him for being born with strong passions or base desires?

If it is foolish to blame a child for being born with a deformed or weak spine, how can it be reasonable to blame him for being born with a deformed or weak brain?

The nature and quality of his hair and his eyes, of his spine and his brain, of his passions and desires, were all settled for and not by him before he drew the breath of life.

If we blame a man because he has inherited fickleness from an Italian grandfather, or praise him because he has inherited steadfastness from a Dutch grandmother, we are actually praising or blaming him because, before he was born, an Italian married a Hollander.

If we blame a man for inheriting cupidity from an ancestor who was greedy and rapacious, or for inheriting licentious inclinations from an ancestor who was a rake, we are blaming him for failing to be born of better parents.

Briefly, then, heredity makes, and environment modifies, a man's nature. And both these forces are outside the man.

Therefore man becomes that which he is by the action of forces outside himself. Therefore it is unjust to blame a man for being that which he is. Therefore it is unjust to blame him for doing that which he does.

Therefore our human laws, which punish men for their acts, are unjust laws.

Now, before we go fully into the meanings of the words "heredity" and "environment," let us make a short summary of the arguments above put forth.

Since man did not create his own nature, man is not responsible for his own acts.

Therefore all laws, human or divine, which punish man for his acts are unjust laws.