h the weak will? If we
do not blame a man for one kind of defect, why blame him for another?

But it does not follow that because we neither hate nor blame a criminal
we should allow him to commit crime.

We do not blame a rattlesnake, nor a shark. These creatures only fulfil
their natures. The shark who devours a baby is no more sinful than the
lady who eats a shrimp. We do not blame the maniac who burns a house
down and brains a policeman, nor the mad dog who bites a minor poet.
But, none the less, we take steps to defend ourselves against snakes,
sharks, lunatics, and mad dogs.

The _Clarion_ does not hate a cruel sweater, nor a tyrannous landlord,
nor a shuffling Minister of State, nor a hypocritical politician: it
pities such poor creatures. Yet the _Clarion_ opposes sweating and
tyranny and hypocrisy, and does its best to defeat and to destroy them.

If a tiger be hungry he naturally seeks food. I do not blame the tiger;
but if he endeavoured to make his dinner off our business manager, and
if I had a gun, I should shoot the tiger.

We do not hate nor blame the blight that destroys our roses and our
vines. The blight is doing what we do: he is trying to live. But we
destroy the blight to preserve our roses and our grapes.

So we do not blame an incendiary. But we are quite justified in
protecting life and property. Dangerous men must be restrained. In cases
where they attempt to kill and maim innocent and useful citizens, as,
for instance, by dynamite outrages, they must, in the last resort, be
killed.

"But," you may say, "the dynamiter knows it is wrong to wreck a street
and murder inoffensive strangers, and yet he does it. Is not that free
will? Is he not blameworthy?"

And I answer that when a man does wrong he does it because he knows no
better, or because he is naturally vicious.

And I hold that in neither case is he to blame: for he did not make
his nature, nor did he make the influences which have operated on that
nature.

Man is a creature of Heredity and Environment. He is by Heredity what
his ancestors have made him (or what God has made him). Up to the
moment of his birth he has had nothing to do with the formation of his
character. As Professor Tyndall says, "that was done _for_ him, and not
_by_ him." From the moment of his birth he is what his inherited nature,
and the influences into which he has been sent without his consent, have
made him.

An omniscient being--like God--who knew e