stops the kind exhortation. That the sins are inevitable does not
prevent punishment; if it prevents anything it prevents persuasion.
Determinism is quite as likely to lead to cruelty as it is certain
to lead to cowardice. Determinism is not inconsistent with the
cruel treatment of criminals. What it is (perhaps) inconsistent
with is the generous treatment of criminals; with any appeal to
their better feelings or encouragement in their moral struggle.
The determinist does not believe in appealing to the will, but he does
believe in changing the environment. He must not say to the sinner,
"Go and sin no more," because the sinner cannot help it. But he
can put him in boiling oil; for boiling oil is an environment.
Considered as a figure, therefore, the materialist has the fantastic
outline of the figure of the madman. Both take up a position
at once unanswerable and intolerable.

Of course it is not only of the materialist that all this is true.
The same would apply to the other extreme of speculative logic.
There is a sceptic far more terrible than he who believes that
everything began in matter. It is possible to meet the sceptic
who believes that everything began in himself. He doubts not the
existence of angels or devils, but the existence of men and cows.
For him his own friends are a mythology made up by himself.
He created his own father and his own mother. This horrible
fancy has in it something decidedly attractive to the somewhat
mystical egoism of our day. That publisher who thought that men
would get on if they believed in themselves, those seekers after
the Superman who are always looking for him in the looking-glass,
those writers who talk about impressing their personalities instead
of creating life for the world, all these people have really only
an inch between them and this awful emptiness. Then when this