Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog

To know that he cannot get more out of a gold reef than there is in it, does not discourage a miner. What he wants is to get all there is in it, and until he wants no more, or believes there is no more, he will keep on digging.

It is so with any human effort. We all know that we cannot do more than we can, whether we believe in free will or no. But we do not know how much we can do, and nobody can tell us. The only way is to try. And we try just as hard as our nature and our desire impel us to try, and just as long as any desire or any hope remains.

Not only that, we commonly try when the limit of our attainment is in sight. For we try to get as near the limit as we can.

For instance. A young man adopts literature as his trade. He knows that before he dips a pen into a bottle that he will never reach the level of Shakespeare and Homer. But he tries to do as well as he can. A miner might be sure that his reef would not yield a million; but he would go on and get all he could.

So it is in the case of a desire for virtue. A man knows that he cannot be better than his nature and his knowledge allow him to be. He knows that he will never be as good as the best. But he wants to be good, and he tries to be as good as he can. The fact that a private soldier is not likely to get a commission does not prevent him from trying to get a sergeant-major's stripes. The knowledge that he is not likely to get twenty-one bull's-eyes in a match does not prevent a rifleman from getting all the bull's-eyes he can.

So with our young painter. All desire is hereditary. All knowledge is environment. The boy wants to be a painter, and he knows that industry and practice will help to make him a good painter. Therefore he tries. He tries just as hard as his desire (his heredity) and the encouragements of his master and his friends (environment) cause him to try.

We do not say that it is no use trying to be good, no use trying to be clever. On the contrary, we say that no man can be good or clever unless he does try; but that his desire to try, his power to try, and his knowledge of the value of trying are parts of his heredity and environment A boy says, "I cannot do this sum." His friend says, "Try again. I had to try six times; but I did it." That encouragement is environment.

A man says, "I cannot keep steady. I have tried." His friend says, "Yes, you can. Try again. Keep on trying. Try for your children's sake." That speech is environment. We advise a weakly lad to try a course of gymnastics, and encourage him to persevere. That is environment.

In another book of mine, "God and My Neighbour," I said something that was pounced upon as inconsistent with my belief. One paper asked what I would give to "cancel that fatal admission." Many critics said in their haste that I had "given my case away."

But I am so far from regretting that paragraph that I will repeat it here, and will prove that it is not inconsistent with my belief, and that it does not "give my case away." The passage is as follows:

I believe that I am what heredity and environment made me. But I know that I can make myself better or worse if I try. I know that because I have learnt it, and the learning has been part of my environment.

What is there in that paragraph that is inconsistent with my belief?

"I know" – how do I know anything? All knowledge is from environment. "I know" (through environment) that I can do something "if I try."

What causes me to try? If I try to write better, or to live better, it is evident that I wish to write better, or to live better. What makes me wish? Heredity and environment.

It may be inherited disposition to do the things called good. It may be love of approbation. Those are parts of my heredity.

It may be that I wish to do the things called good because I have been taught that I ought to do them. That teaching would be part of my environment Therefore the desire to be good, or better, and the knowledge that I can be good, or better, if I try, arise from and belong to heredity and environment.

"But to try. Does not that show free will?" I have just proved that I try because I wish to succeed, and that environment has taught me that I cannot succeed without trying.

"But does not the free will come in when I decide whether to do good or bad things?" No. For that has already been decided for me by heredity and environment, which have made me wish to do good things.

So there is nothing wrong with that paragraph. The fault was in my critics, who had failed to understand the subject upon which they were trying to argue.

A man can only try if heredity or environment causes him to want to try, and he can only keep on trying as long as heredity and environment cause him to keep on.

One man is born with more talent than another. And one man is born with more industry, or with more ambition, or with more hope, patience, determination, than another.

And the man who is more ambitious, or more patient, or more hopeful, or more determined, will try harder, and will try longer than the man who is less ambitious, or hopeful, or determined.

Heredity settles that.

But the man who has less of the qualities that make one try, may be spurred on by a teacher, a friend, or a powerful motive, and so may try harder and longer than the stronger man.

As, for example, a man who has given up trying to succeed in some enterprise, may fall in love, and then the added desire to marry the woman he loves, may cause him to try harder than ever, and may lead him to succeed.

But these things belong to his environment.

Not only that, but they are a proof that environment can move a man when free will fails. For the man has a free will before he falls in love. But he loses heart, and does not succeed in his enterprise. But love, which is environment, supplies a new desire, and he does succeed.

Why does he succeed? Because he wants to marry, and he cannot marry until he succeeds. This desire to marry comes of environment, and it rules the will, and compels the will to will a further effort. Is it not so?

Although we say that man is the creature of heredity and environment, we do not say that he has no self-control. We only say that his self-control comes from heredity and environment, and is limited and controlled by heredity and environment.

He can only "do as he likes" when heredity and environment cause him "to like," and he can only "do as he likes," so far and so long as heredity and environment enable him to go on.

A man "can be good if he tries," but not unless heredity and environment cause him to wish to try.

But for heredity he could not lift a finger: he would not have a finger to lift. But for environment he could not learn to use a finger. He could never know good from bad.

We all know that we can train and curb ourselves, that we can weed out bad habits, and cultivate good habits. No one has any doubt about that. The question is what causes us to do the one or the other. The answer is – heredity and environment.

We can develop our muscles, our brains, our morals; and we can develop them enormously.

But before we can do these things we must want to do them, and we must know that we can do them, and how to do them; and all knowledge, and all desire comes from environment and heredity.

A youth wishes to be strong. Why? Say he has been reading Mr. Sandow's book. He is told there that by doing certain exercises every day he can very greatly increase his strength. This sets him to work at the dumb-bells. There may be many motives impelling him. One group form a general desire to be strong: that is heredity. But the spur that moves him is Sandow's book, and that spur, and the information as to how to proceed, are environment.

The youth begins, and for a few months he does the exercises every morning. But they begin to get irksome.

He is tired, he has a slight cold, he wants to read or write. He neglects the exercises. Then he remembers that he cannot get strong unless he perseveres and does the work regularly, and he goes on again. Or he neglects his training for awhile, until he meets another youth who has improved himself. Then he goes back to the dumb-bells.

Is not this, to our own knowledge, the kind of thing that happens to us all, in all kinds of self-training, whether it be muscular, mental, or moral?

What causes the fluctuations? Let the reader examine his own conduct, and he will find a continual shifting and conflict of motives. And he will never find a motive that cannot be traced to his temperament or training, to his heredity or environment.

A man wants to learn French, or shorthand. Let him ask himself why he wants to learn, and he will find the motive springs from temperament or training. He begins to learn. He finds the work difficult and irksome. He has to spur himself on by all kinds of expedients. Finally he learns, or he gives up trying to learn; and he will find that his action has been settled by a contest between his desire to be able to write shorthand, or to speak French, and his dislike to the drudgery of learning; or that his action has been settled by a conflict between his desire to know shorthand, or French, and his desire to do something else. He does the thing he most desires to do. And all desire comes from heredity or from environment.

Every member of his body, every faculty, every impulse is fixed for him by heredity; every kind of knowledge, every kind of encouragement or discouragement comes of environment.

I hope we have made that quite clear, and now we may ask to what it leads us.

And we shall find that it leads us to the conclusion that everything a man does is, at the instant when he does it, the only thing he can do: the only thing he can do, then.

"What! do you mean to say-?" Yes. It is startling. But let us keep our heads cool and our eyes wide open, and we shall find that it is quite true, and that it is not difficult to understand.

CHAPTER TWELVE – GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?

WE are to ask whether it is true that everything a man does is the only thing he could do, at the instant of his doing it.

This is a very important question, because if the answer is yes, all praise and all blame are undeserved.

ALL PRAISE AND ALL BLAME

Let us take some revolting action as a test.

A tramp has murdered a child on the highway, has robbed her of a few coppers, and has thrown her body into a ditch.

"Do you mean to say that tramp could not help doing that? Do you mean to say he is not to blame? Do you mean to say he is not to be punished?"

Yes. I say all those things; and if all those things are not true this book is not worth the paper it is printed on.

Prove it? I have proved it. But I have only instanced venial acts, and now we are confronted with murder. And the horror of murder drives men almost to frenzy, so that they cease to think: they can only feel.

Murder. Yes, a brutal murder. It comes upon us with a sickening shock. But I said in my first chapter that I proposed to defend those whom God and man condemn, and to demand justice for those whom God and man have wronged. I have to plead for the bottom dog: the lowest, the most detested, the worst.

The tramp has committed a murder. Man would loathe him, revile him, hang him: God would cast him into outer darkness.

"Not," cries the pious Christian, "if he repent."

I make a note of the repentance and pass on.

The tramp has committed a murder. It was a cowardly and cruel murder, and the motive was robbery.

But I have proved that all motives and all powers; all knowledge and capacity, all acts and all words, are caused by heredity and environment.

I have proved that a man can only be good or bad as heredity and environment cause him to be good or bad; and I have proved these things because I have to claim that all punishments and rewards, all praise and blame, are undeserved.

And now, let us try this miserable tramp – our brother.

GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?

The tramp has murdered a child for her money. What is his defence?

I appear for the prisoner, and claim that he is not responsible for his act.

(Cries of shame! bosh! lynch him!)

I will first of all remind the court of the reasons upon which I base my claim.

(Gentleman in white tie rises and declaims vehemently against the immorality of the defence. Talks excitedly about the flood gates of anarchy, and the bulwarks of society, and is with difficulty persuaded to resume his seat.)

Clerical environment does not make for toleration and sweet reasonableness. I proceed to open my case.

Every quality of body or mind possessed by a child at birth has been handed down to the child by its ancestors.

The child could not select its ancestors; could not select its own qualities of body and mind.

Therefore the child is not to blame for any evil quality of body or mind with which it is born.

Therefore this tramp was not to blame if, at the moment of birth, his nature was prone to violence or to vice.

The prisoner is a criminal. He is either a criminal born, or a criminal made.

If he is a "born criminal" he is a victim of atavism, and ought not to be blamed, but pitied. For it is not a fault, but a misfortune, to be born an atavist.

Had a tiger killed the child, we should have to admit that such is the tiger's nature; as it is the nature of a lark to sing.

But, if the prisoner is an atavist it is his nature to be furious and cruel.

We cannot, however, be sure that a man is a "born criminal" because he commits a murder. So great is the power of environment for evil, as well as for good, that perhaps the most innocent and humane man in this court might, by the influence of an evil environment, have been made capable of an act as horrible.

If the prosecution adopt the course I expect them to adopt, and claim that the unfortunate prisoner "knew better": if they succeed in proving that the prisoner was well-educated, carefully brought up, and never in all his life was once exposed to any evil influence, then I shall claim that such evidence proves the prisoner to be atavist, and entitles him to a verdict of unsound mind.

Because no man whose whole environment had been good, would be capable of murdering a child for a few coppers, unless he were an atavist or insane.

On the other hand, if it should appear, in the course of evidence, that the prisoner was born of criminal and ignorant parents, was brought up in an atmosphere of violence and crime, was sent out, untaught, or evilly taught, and undisciplined, to scramble for a living; if it should be proved that he fell into bad company, that he turned thief, that he was sent to prison and branded as a felon: if it should be proved that he has been hunted by the police, flogged with the "cat" by warders, bullied by counsel, denounced by magistrates and judges; if it should be proved that he has been treated at every turn of his wretched career as a wild beast or a pariah; if it should be proved that he has been allowed to degenerate into an ignorant, a savage, a bestial and a drunken loafer; then, I shall plead that this miserable man has been reduced to his present morose, cruel, and immoral state by evil environment; and I shall ask for a verdict in his favour. (Cries of Monster! Hang him! Lynch him!)

It is said the prisoner is an inhuman monster. He has been made a monster by a monstrous heredity; or he has been made a monster by a monstrous environment.

No man of sound heredity ever becomes a monster save by the action of an evil environment.

Say the prisoner is an atavist; a man bred back to the beasts. Then he is entitled to be judged by the standard we apply to beasts.

Some of you will remember Poe's story of the murder in the Rue Morgue, in which a terrible murder is done by an ape. In such a case our horror and our anger would probably cause us to shoot the ape. But that would be the uprising within us of our own atavistic and brutish passions; it would not be the result of our promptings of our human reason. Reason might prompt us to kill the ape as a precaution against a repetition of violence. But anger and hate are not reasonable, not human: all anger and all hate are bestial – like the hate and the anger of the tramp. But if the prisoner is not an atavist, or brute-man, if he has been reduced to his present moral state of environment, ask for some measure of compensation from the society; unjust laws, and dishonest social conditions, and immoral neglect are responsible for the fact that a brother man has been allowed, or rather compelled, by society, to grow up an ignorant and desperate savage.

Be that as it may, the prisoner is a creature of heredity and environment; and, as he is bad, the heredity, or the environment, or both, must be bad. And I ask for a verdict in the prisoner's favour.

Will any man on the jury say me nay? The prisoner has defied the law, he has injured society, has outraged morality. Have law and morality not injured him? Has society not injured him?

He has committed a terrible crime, for which it is claimed that he should be punished. Who shall be punished for the crimes of the law and of society against him?

There is much proper and natural sympathy expressed by the prosecution with the parents of the murdered child. Is there no sympathy with this unhappy victim of atavism, or of society? This prisoner has been bred as a beast, or treated as a savage, until he has become a savage and a beast.

Here stands a human being, poisoned, battered, and degraded beyond all human semblance. Here stands a brother man, whose soul has been murdered by inches, has been murdered by the society that now hales him here to be denounced, and execrated, and hanged.

Do I speak truth, or falsehood? Is logic true? Are facts true? That which society has here planted it has here to reap. Not all the law, the piety, and education in the wide, wide earth can make this ruined and degraded prisoner the man he might have been. Not all the repentance we can feel, not any compensation we can offer can buy him back the soul we have destroyed. It is too late.

Gentlemen of the jury, is it nothing to you? You are accessories to the fact. I appeal to your justice, to your pity —

(A voice: How much pity had he for the child?)

None. There is no pity in his soul. Either his forefathers put none there, or society has destroyed it.

(Cries of monstrous! immoral! preposterous! shame!)

I hear cries of monstrous and immoral. But I do not hear any voice say "false." Is there a man in court can impeach my reasoning, or disprove my facts? Is there a man in court can deny one statement I have made? Is there a man in court can break one link of the steel chain of logic I have riveted upon our metaphysicians, our moralists, our kings, our judges, and our gods?

You say my defence is unreasonable and immoral. You dread the effects of justice and of reason upon society. You talk of crime and cruelty, of law and order. You want the prisoner punished. You ask for justice: but you want revenge. Give me a fair hearing, and I will speak of these things to you.

When you cry out that to deny responsibility is immoral you are thinking, at the back of your heads, that men can only be kept within the law by fear; that wrong-doing can only be repressed by punishment.

It is the old and cruel conventions of society that hold you fast to the error that blame and punishment are righteous and salutary. It is ignorance of human nature that betrays you into the belief that men can be made honest and benevolent by cruelty and terror.

Punishment has never been just, has never been effectual. Punishment has always failed of its purpose: the greater its severity, the more abject its failure.

Men cannot be made good and gentle by means of violence and wrong. The real tamers and purifiers of human hearts are love and charity and reason.

You seem to think it is a noble thing to be angry with a criminal, and to be angry with me for defending him. But it is always ignoble to be angry.

Some of you deny this blood-stained murderer for your brother; but directly your features are distorted by passion, directly your fury overcomes your reason, directly you begin to shriek for his blood, your close relationship to him appears.

Reason, patience, self-control, these are lacking in the savage criminal: I look around for them in vain amongst the crowd in this court.

I said that I would take note of what our Christian friend said about repentance. I will speak to that question now. There are few who so often forget the tenets of their own religion as the clergy. I have found it so.

The clergy are always amongst the first to raise the cry of immorality when one speaks against punishment as unjust, or useless.

Yet the clergy preach the doctrine of repentance. It is only a few weeks since the English papers printed a letter from a murderer under sentence of death, in which he spoke of meeting his relatives "at the feet of Jesus."

In a week from the date of his letter he expected to be in heaven. In a month from the time when he murdered his wife, he expected to be with Jesus, and to live in happiness and glory for ever.

That is what the prison chaplain had taught him. It is what the clergy do teach. They talk of the folly and the immorality of abolishing prison and gallows; and then they offer the perpetrators of the most inhuman and terrible crimes a certainty of everlasting bliss in a sinless heaven.

If it is immoral and absurd to say that all criminals are sinned against as well as sinning; if it is immoral and absurd to say that we ought not to hang a man, nor to flog, nor to imprison him, what kind of morality and wisdom lie in offering all criminals an eternity of happiness and glory?

The clergy are that which their environment has made them. What kind of reasoning can we expect from men who have been taught that it is wicked to think?

Before you are angry with me for defending the prisoner be sure that you are not confounding the ideas of the criminal and the crime. I hate the crime as much as any man here; but I do not hate the criminal. I am not defending evil; I am defending the evil-doer.

Before you plume yourselves too much upon your superior morality and greater love of justice, allow me to remind you that I am asking that the world shall be moral, and not only this man: I am demanding justice for all men, and not for a few. But you – you think you have acted righteously and honourably when you have hanged a murderer; but you have not a thought for the inhuman social conditions that make men criminals. This prisoner is but a type: a type of the legion victims of a selfish and cowardly society. Every day, in every city, in every country, innocent children are being poisoned and perverted by millions. Which of you has spoken a word or lifted a hand to prevent this wholesale wrong? What man of you all, who are so fierce against crime, so loud in praise of morality, has ever tried in act or speech to combat the crime and the immorality which society perpetuates: with your knowledge and consent? You who are so anxious to punish crime, what are you doing to prevent it?

When I ask for a verdict in the prisoner's favour you assume that I would set him free, assuring him that he is an injured man and that fate compelled him to the act of murder.

Do you think, then, that I would release a tiger amongst the crowd in a circus, or that I would allow a homicidal maniac to go at large in the streets of a city?

It would be folly to give to this brutalised and ignorant tramp a message which hardly a man in this court is sufficiently educated and refined to understand; it would be folly to set at liberty a besotted savage: it would be unsafe.

But I say to you that the prisoner is a victim of heredity and environment, that he has been debased and wronged by society, and that to punish him is unjust.

(A woman's voice: "The monster! Kill him.")

Madam, there is not a woman here can be sure that any child she bears may not be driven by society to stand some day in the dock.

But still. You are not satisfied. Some of you, at any rate, still frown and set your teeth hard. Logic or no logic, he has murdered a baby.

There stands my clerical friend, with knitted brows, and fire in his eyes. But that his calling checks his fierce old Saxon heredity this parson would echo the stern speech of Carlyle to the criminal: "Scoundrel! Know that we for ever hate thee!"