GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THE PROBLEM OF FREE WILL 933
purpose of the univcnc are determined not by him but
for him, by considerations over which he hat no control.
His sexual morality, for example, is largely determined by
considerations of . topography Thus if he is born in a bedroom
in Balham, he will think it right to have one wife and
condemn sexual intercourse outside the marriage tie; if he
is born in a bedroom in Baghdad, he will think it right
to have four wives, provided that he can afford their
upkeep, and see nothing to censure in concubinage*
That Human Nature is Physiologically Determined.
Or consider him*, again, from the point of view of physio*
logy. A man's nature is, it is obvious, largely the product
of his bodily constitution. An invalid, for example, has
a different mentality from a healthy man; a hunchback
from a straight man. It is only to-day that we are
beginning to realise the extent to which character is
dependent upon the secretions of the ductless glands. An
inefficiency of thyroid produces a half-wit, and an excess
of adrenalin a coward. Even the moral sense is apparently
dependent, at least in part, upon the constitution of the
blood stream. For example, one of the most disturbing
after-effects of sleepy sickness is an outbreak of kleptomania,
and ladies of hitherto irreproachable moral character
are assailed by irresistible temptations to abstract
articles from shop counters.
These observations are of a general character and are
such as will occur to any educated person not possessed
of special technical knowledge. The more closely, however,
the relation between the mind and the body is investigated,
the more absolute does the dependence of the former
on the latter appear to be.
The Evidence from Genetics. Consider, for example,
the light which is thrown upon the question by the recently
established science of genetics. The necessity for some form
of determinism being taken for granted by both sets of
disputants, die question was at one time much debated
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