Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog

And now I think we have got a clear idea of the meanings of the words "heredity," "variation," and "atavism," and the most timid reader will not be afraid of them any more.

There is no need, for our purpose, to wrestle with severe science. The reader may find for himself all about "pangenesis" in Darwin, and about the "germ plasm" in Weissmann. Here we will not tax our memories with such weird words as "biophors," "gemmules," "ids," "idents," and "determinants." Our similes of beads, tartans, and cards will serve us well enough.

The only objection to our similes is that they are too simple.

The mixture of bloods in descent is very much more extensive | than our mixture of cards or beads.

If we trace a child's descent back only four generations we find that he has no less than thirty fore-parents belonging to sixteen different families. Another generation would reach thirty-two families. If we go back to twenty generations we find the number of families drawn upon to be over a million.

But Darwin speaks of "thousands of generations." Does not! this suggest the wonderful possibilities of variation and atavism?

Imagine the variety of character and physique in a city like London. Then remember that each one of us is descended from more ancestors, and of much wider varieties, than all the population of London. And to hold a man answerable for his inheritance from those motley myriads of men and women is to hold him answerable for the natures and the actions of millions of human beings whom he never saw, of whom he never heard.

We all know that the different races of men differ from each other in colour, in features, and in capacity. We have only to think for a little of the Japanese, the Americans, the Spaniards, and the Swedes, to feel the full force of the term "racial characteristics."

We know that there is a great difference between the Irish and the Scotch. We know that there is a great difference between the Italians and the Dutch. We know the strongly marked peculiarities of the Jews and the Greeks.

Now, to blame a man for his nature is to blame him for not being like some other man. And how absurd it would be to blame a Norwegian for not being like a Jew, or a Gascon for not being like a Scot.

The Italians are wayward and impulsive: the Dutch are steadfast and cautious. Is it reasonable to blame the one for not being like the other?

If a child is born of an Italian father and an Irish mother, is it reasonable to expect that child to be as cool and methodical as the child of Dutch and Scottish parents?

Is it not the same with personal as with racial traits?

We have all heard of "Spanish pride," and of "Irish wit"; we have all heard of the pride of the Howards, and the genius of the Bachs.

To blame a Spaniard for being proud is to blame him for being born of Spanish parents. To blame a Howard for his pride is to blame him for being a son of the Howards.

Bach was a musical genius, Sheridan was witty, Nelson was brave, Rembrandt was a great painter, because there were golden beads in their ancestral bottles. But they did not put the golden beads there. They inherited them, as Lord Tomnoddy inherits his lands, his riches, and his plentiful lack of wit.

We should not expect the daughter of Carmen to be like the daughter of Jeannie Deans, nor the son of Rawdon Crawley to be like the son of Parson Adams. We should, indeed, no more think of praising a man for inheriting the genius or the virtues of his ancestors, than we should think of praising a man for inheriting his parents' wealth.

We have laughed over the Gilbertian satire on our patriotic boastfulness:

For he himself has said it,
And it's greatly to his credit,
That he is an Englishman.
He might have been a Rooshian,
A Frenchman, Turk, or Prooshian,
Or even Italian;
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman.

All of us can feel the point of those satirical lines; but some of us have yet to learn that a man can no more help being born "good" or "bad," "smart" or "dull," than he can help being born English, French, or Prooshian, or "even Italian."

Some of our ancestors conquered at Hastings, and some of them did not Some of our ancestors held the pass at Thermopylae, and others ran away at Bunker's Hill. Some were saints, and some were petty larcenists; some were philosophers, and some were pirates; some were knights and some were savages; some were gentle ladies, some were apes, and some were hogs. And we inherit from them all.

We are all of us great-great-grandchildren of the beasts. We carry the bestial attributes in our blood: some more, some less. Who amongst us is so pure and exalted that he has never been conscious of the bestial taint? Who amongst us has not fought with wild beasts – not at Ephesus, but in his own heart?

Some of our ancestors wore tails! Is it strange that some of our descendants should have what Winwood Reade called "tailed minds"? The ghosts of old tragedies haunt the gloomy vestibules of many human minds. The Bottom Dog may often be possessed of ancestral devils.

He that is without inherited taint among us, let him cast the first stone.

CHAPTER FOUR – THE BEGINNINGS OF MORALS

|WHAT do we mean by the words "sin" and "vice," and "crime"?

Sin is disobedience of the laws of God.

Crime is disobedience of the laws of men.

Vice is disobedience of the laws of nature.

I say that there is no such thing as a known law of God: that the so-called laws of God were made by men in God's name, and that therefore the word "sin" need trouble us no more. There is no such thing as sin.

I say that since there are bad laws as well as good laws, a crime may be a good instead of a bad act. For though it is wrong to disobey a good law, it may be right to disobey a bad law.

And now what do we mean by the words "good" and "bad," "moral" and "immoral"?

We call an act good when it "makes good"; when its effects are beneficial. We call an act bad when it "makes bad"; when its effects are injurious.

What are "morals"? My dictionary says, "the doctrine of man's moral duties and social relations"; and in Crabbe's Synonyms I find: "By an observance of good morals we become good members of society."

The italics are mine. Morals are the standard of social conduct. All immoral conduct is anti-social, and all anti-social conduct is immoral.

If there were only one man in the world he could not act immorally, for there would be no other person whom his acts could injure or offend.

Where two persons live together either may act immorally, for he may so act as to injure or offend his companion.

Any act is immoral and wrong which needlessly injures a fellow creature. But no act is immoral or wrong which does not directly or indirectly inflict needless injury upon any fellow creature.

I say, "needless injury"; for it may sometimes be right and necessary to injure a fellow creature.

If it is wrong to inflict needless injury upon our fellows, it is right to defend our fellows and ourselves from the attacks of those who would needlessly injure us.

Any act which inflicts "needless" injury upon a fellow creature is immoral; but no act which does not inflict needless injury upon a fellow creature is immoral.

That is the root of my moral code. It may at first seem insufficient, but I think it will be found to reach high enough, wide enough, and deep enough to cover all true morality. For there is hardly any act a man can perform which does not affect a fellow creature.

For instance, if a man takes to drink, or neglects his health, he injures others as well as himself. For he becomes a less agreeable and a less useful member of society. He takes more from the common stock, and gives back less. He may even become an eyesore, or a danger, or a burden to his fellows. A cricketer who drank, or neglected to practise, would be acting as immorally towards the rest of the team as he would if he fielded carelessly or batted selfishly. Because, speaking morally, a man belongs not only to himself, but also to the whole human race.

WHERE DID MORALS COME FROM?

Morals do not come by revelation, but by evolution. Morals are not based upon the commands of God, but upon the nature and the needs of man. Our churches attribute the origin of morals to the Bible. But the Egyptians and Babylons had moral codes before Moses was born or the Bible written. Thousands of years, tens of thousands of years, perhaps millions of years before Abraham, there were civilisations and moral codes.

Even before the coming of man there were the beginnings of morals in the animal world.