and logical theory of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it gradually
destroyed his humanity. Now it is the charge against the main deductions
of the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his
humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry,
initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads men
to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend
that it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you
are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to
destroy free will. The determinists come to bind, not to loose. They may
well call their law the "chain" of causation. It is the worst chain that
ever fettered a human being. You may use the language of liberty, if you
like, about materialistic teaching, but it is obvious that this is just
as inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language when applied to a
man locked up in a mad-house. You may say, if you like, that the man is
free to think himself a poached egg. But it is surely a more massive and
important fact that if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat, drink,
sleep, walk, or smoke a cigarette. Similarly you may say, if you like,
that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the
reality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important fact
that he is not free to praise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge,
to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year
resolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say "thank
you" for the mustard.

In passing from this subject I may note that there is a queer fallacy to
the effect that materialistic fatalism is in some way favourable to
mercy, to the abolition of cruel punishments or punishments of any kind.
This is startlingly the reverse of the truth. It is quite tenable that
the doctrine of necessity makes no difference at all; that it leaves the
flogger flogging and the kind friend exhorting as before. But obviously