The Positive School of Criminology | Page 9

any other physical phenomenon. It is evident
that the idea of accident, applied to physical nature, is unscientific.
Every physical phenomenon is the necessary effect of the causes that
determined it beforehand. If those causes are known to us, we have 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