The Positive School of Criminology | Page 9

the conviction that that phenomenon is necessary, is fate, and, if we do not know them, we think it is accidental. The same is true of human phenomena. But since we do not know the internal and external causes in the majority of cases, we pretend that they are free phenomena, that is to say, that they are not determined necessarily by their causes. Hence the spiritualistic conception of the free will implies that every human being, in spite of the fact that their internal and external conditions are necessarily predetermined, should be able to come to a deliberate decision by the mere fiat of his or her free will, so that, even though the sum of all the causes demands a no, he or she can decide in favor of yes, and vice versa. Now, who is there that thinks, when deliberating some action, what are the causes that determine his choice? We can justly say that the greater part of our actions are determined by habit, that we make up our minds almost from custom, without considering the reason for or against. When we get up in the morning we go about our customary business quite automatically, we perform it as a function in which we do not think of a free will. We think of that only in unusual and grave cases, when we are called upon to make some special choice, the so-called voluntary deliberation, and then we weigh the reasons for or against; we ponder, we hesitate what to do. Well, even in such cases, so little depends on our will in the deliberations which we are about to take that if any one were to ask us one minute before we have decided what we are going to do, we should not know what we were going to decide. So long as we are undecided, we cannot foresee what we are going to decide; for under the conditions in which we live that part of the psychic process takes place outside of our consciousness. And since we do not know its causes, we cannot tell what will be its effects. Only after we have come to a certain decision can we imagine that it was due to our voluntary action. But shortly before we could not tell, and that proves that it did not depend on us alone. Suppose, for instance, that you have decided to play a joke on a fellow-student, and that you carry it out. He takes it unkindly. You are surprised, because that is contrary to his habits and your expectations. But after a while you learn that your friend had received bad news from home on the preceding morning and was therefore not in a condition to feel like joking, and then you say: "If we had known that we should not have decided to spring the joke on him." That is equivalent to saying that, if the balance of your will had been inclined toward the deciding motive of no, you would have decided no; but not knowing that your friend was distressed and not in his habitual frame of mind, you decided in favor of yes. This sentence: "If I had known this I should not have done that" is an outcry of our internal consciousness, which denies the existence of a free will.
On the other hand, nothing is created and nothing destroyed either in matter or in force, because both matter and force are eternal and indestructible. They transform themselves in the most diversified manner, but not an atom is added or taken away, not one vibration more or less takes place. And so if is the force of external and internal circumstances which determines the decision of our will at any given moment. The idea of a free will, however, is a denial of the law of cause and effect, both in the field of philosophy and theology. Saint Augustine and Martin Luther furnish irrefutable theological arguments for the denial of a free will. The omnipotence of God is irreconcilable with the idea of free will. If everything that happens does so because a superhuman and omnipotent power wants it (Not a single leaf falls to the ground without the will of God), how can a son murder his father without the permission and will of God? For this reason Saint Augustine and Martin Luther have written de servo arbitrio.
But since theological arguments serve only those who believe in the concept of a god, which is not given to us by science, we take recourse to the laws which we observe in force and matter, and to the law of causality. If modern science has discovered the universal link which connects all phenomena through cause and effect, which shows that every phenomenon is the result