The men are to be "persuaded" to rise. And what is that persuasion, but a part of their environment? And if men are "persuaded" to try, and succeed, to whom is the victory due? Is it not due to the "persuasion"? Of course it is. And the persuasion came from outside themselves, and is part of their environment. The same clergyman said, "If heredity and environment have made the individuals of whom society is made up, heredity and environment have made society itself," and asked me how I could logically accuse society of injuring any one. A strange question based upon a misunderstanding. The criminal injures society, society injures the criminal. I accuse both of injurious action. I _blame_ neither. I say both are that which heredity and environment made them. I say neither can help it. But I say that both can be _taught_ to help it, and that _both_ should be taught to help it. Is there anything illogical in that? This brings me to the Rev. Charles Marson, a very clever and witty man, who is hopelessly muddled over the simple matter. In "The Religious Doubts of Democracy," Mr. Marson says: Now, as reform starts by a feeling and conviction of blame, and cannot start at all unless it can say: "This is wrong. It might be right. This ought not to be and is, and need not be" so, if the answer is: "But this was as mathematically fixed at its birth as the path of a planet in its orbit," the poor reformed can only say, "Sorry I spoke"; and if he speaks again it will be to laugh at the Clarion for wasting ink in blaming orbits which are mathematically fixed. Indeed, if I were a burglar, I would invest part of my swag in endowing Determinists to pour arguments and ridicule upon Christian magistrates and criminal codes, with their active and irritating blame. Certainly, if I were Lord Rackrent, I should invite my anti-reform friends, the Determinists, to dinner, take them to the opera, and send them round to address the Socialists, at my expense. Mr. Blatchford, being anxious to fight against the doctrine of sin, builds a fatalist rampart, looks over the top, and says: "Can man sin against God? His actions are fixed." We walk round behind him and say: "Can man sin against man? Can social systems sin against man?" And the very rampart of fatalism he has erected hinders him from escaping from a withering fire, except by backing into obscurantism and ultra-Toryism. This is the same error, differently stated. If man cannot be blamed, society cannot be blamed: therefore everything must remain as it is. I often wonder where the clergy learn their logic. Men cannot be blamed: society cannot be blamed. But both can be _altered_: by environment. That is to say, if heredity and environment have endowed some man with reason and knowledge and inclination for the task, that man may be able to improve society, or the individual, by _teaching_ one or both. And the teaching will be environment.