IT is noteworthy that in our time the discussion of the freedom or non-freedom of the will has lost something of the impassioned tone that distinguished the hot controversies on the subject prevailing forty or fifty years ago. The vehemence of the dispute in those days was due to the humiliation and despair so widely felt as a result of the then dominant naturalism or determinism and the so-called “moral statistic” that went with that type of thought. People at all sensitive on such matters suddenly found themselves, by judgment of the Court of Science, deprived of the freedom of their own souls and caught in a mechanism from which there was no escape.

They dealt with the situation according to temperament. Some were inclined to acquiesce and resigned themselves to their fate. Others rose in vigorous rebellion, though they were painfully conscious of the impotence of their rebellion. The new, or at least supposedly new, thesis was the “determinism of volition,” and against it were thrown the disorganised cohorts of the old-fashioned doctrines of free-will, together with eclectic or conciliatory modifications of those doctrines. The debate, with all the inadequacies and misunderstandings which kept it alive, not only overflowed into literature (famous was Zola’s great cycle dealing with the Rougon-Macquarts) but even invaded the tribunals of justice. On every pretext and occasion lawyers talked of “heredity,” of “environment,” of “forces stronger than the individual.” This was the heyday of “expert testimony” and of publicity for the “man of science.” Neuropaths and psychopaths could be found at every trial, summoned by the defence to show the irresponsibility of the criminal at the bar.

But gradually the excitement died down and the disputes were forgotten—one way, as I think I have said somewhere, of solving philosophical problems that are insoluble because badly stated. People recovered their spirits. The gloom lifted. Naturalism had promised much more than it could ever deliver, and the tyranny it had exercised gave ground before good sense. Philosophy re-established contact with its nobler traditions; and so when it returned once more to this problem of free will, it was able to consider the matter dispassionately and calmly.

The fact is that the question of free-will has no meaning when Necessity and Freedom are set up in opposition, on the theory that one precludes the other or that one must limit or modify the other. It acquires significance—and with significance, a solution—only as Freedom and Necessity are identified.

The act that is truly free is the act which our Spirit performs because it can perform no other, the act which is wholly in harmony with our being at a given moment under given conditions, the act which comes as the solution of a problem prepared for us by the past but which we state in our own terms and solve for ourselves. To hold any other view than this would force us to say that a thinker thinks mechanically and not freely because he follows the necessity of logic, or that a painter paints mechanically and not freely when he obeys the laws of his art.

But to recognise this situation is to recognise that the individual is not responsible for his action, in the sense that the action is not an arbitrary choice on his part and therefore no praise and no blame, no reward and no punishment, are due to him because of it. This may seem paradoxical, but its truth becomes apparent in the perfect form of knowing—historical knowledge.

In history, actions are explained, characterised, understood, but never praised or blamed; and they are attributed not to individual authors but to the whole historical progression of which they are aspects or constituents.

It is this truth that appears so beautifully in the often noted modesty of the great, who are conscious that they have acted as instruments of something beyond themselves. And it appears, conversely, in the brazen frankness of certain rascals who claim to have done what they did because they could not do otherwise, subject as they were to an irresistible compulsion.

So then, if a person is, in the last analysis, not responsible for his actions, how can he be responsible—since it must be evident that what I have just said betrays no intent to release the world from moral responsibility?

The answer is a simple one: we are not responsible, but we are held responsible. And what so holds us to responsibility is society, which insists on certain kinds of action and says to the individual: “If you do as I bid, you will be rewarded; if you disobey, you will be punished. You know what you are doing, and you know what I demand: therefore I declare you responsible for the things you do. To be sure, following your own inclinations to my disadvantage, you can allege a good excuse in the Necessity constraining you. But what good will that do you? I shall take no account of it. I ask for no excuses. I am interested in attaining the ends I have in view. I therefore exert all possible pressure upon you to realise my purposes through you; but if you prefer my chastisement to my praise, I shall work through others instead of through you.” Some such language we use even toward ourselves in our inner individual lives, which may be thought of as a kind of society in miniature. We set ourselves an objective or an ideal, and by that very fact we assume responsibility for attaining or not attaining it. Remorse is a process of reviewing what we have done and of rousing ourselves to do differently in the future. Our actions represent what we are. We are grieved at having been or at being such as they show us to be; so we reproach ourselves—that is to say, we strive to change, and in fact, we do gradually change, thanks to the remorse we suffer. But if we were suddenly to pass from the practical attitude of mind where our will is intent on its creative effort, to a theoretical or contemplative attitude, and if we were then to examine what we have done from the latter point of view, we would develop no remorse, and any we might have been feeling would be quieted. For now we would understand just how and why it was that we did what we did; and we would have no occasion to repeat the adage that tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner, since feeling no remorse we could feel no need of forgiveness.

Assumption of responsibility proves, therefore, to be a phase of the dialectic of action. It arises out of practical considerations; and from this it follows that we cannot logically deduce from the quality of an action the kind and amount of punishment or recompense belonging to it. Penalties and rewards are determined by the urgency of social and historical needs. At one moment they will be very great for actions that at other times will be exempt from penalty or considered unworthy of reward. But whatever their degree, whatever the conditions of their application, penalties and rewards presuppose that the individual to whom they are applied is able to understand what he has done and what was expected or required of him. Only positivists and believers in determinism could think crudely enough to confuse the idea of “punishment” as a means of influencing the volition of the members of a social system, with the so-called “protection of society” from certain dangers; and consequently to ask for the condemnation and elimination of violent lunatics and professional criminals on the same footing. Even granting that a society might do well to put lunatics to death, such a policy would be a policy of public hygiene and not of ethical education, since it could have no effective influence on the consciences of its citizens. On the other hand, the death penalty does conserve its status as a punishment as regards the criminal; for the criminal can think and he can understand; he possesses the elements essential for a change of heart.