if it stops either of them it 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 kindly world all round the man has
been blackened out like a lie; when friends fade into ghosts, and the