That is why the word "marriage" carries with it no moral revulsion against polygamy in the mind of a Turk. The brain of a Turk has no "record" on its grey matter of any moral teaching against polygamy. And the "still small voice" does not make good the absence of the "record," and tell him that polygamy is wrong. This being so, what becomes of the theory that conscience is a mysterious agent of God implanted in the mind of man to guide him to do right and to shun wrong? A cannibal chief was told by a missionary that it was wicked to have two wives. He went away and _ate_ one wife. The missionary had printed on his brain "record" the lesson that to have two wives was wrong; but there was no "record" there to tell him he must not kill one wife and eat her. Where was the "still small voice," the "divine guide to right conduct"? CHAPTER TEN--FREE WILL THE free will delusion has been a stumbling block in the way of human thought for thousands of years. Let us try whether common sense and common knowledge cannot remove it. Free will is a subject of great importance to us in this case; and it is one we must come to with our eyes wide open and our wits wide awake; not because it is very difficult, but because it has been tied and twisted into a tangle of Gordian knots by twenty centuries full of wordy but unsuccessful philosophers, The free will party claim that man is responsible for his acts, because his will is free to choose between right and wrong. We reply that the will is not free; and that if it were free man could not know right from wrong until he was taught. As to the knowledge of good and evil the free will party will claim that conscience is an unerring guide. But I have already proved that conscience does not and cannot tell us what is right and what is wrong: it only reminds us of the lessons we have learnt as to right and wrong. The "still small voice" is not the voice of God: it is the voice of heredity and environment. And now to the freedom of the will. When a man says his will is free, he means that it is free of all control or interference: that it can over-rule heredity and environment. We reply that the will is ruled by heredity and environment. The cause of all the confusion on this subject may be shown in a few words. When the free will party say that man has a free will, they mean that he is free to act as he chooses to act. There is no need to deny that. _But what causes him to choose?_ That is the pivot upon which the whole discussion turns. The free will party seem to think of the will as something independent of the man, as something outside him. They seem to think that the will decides without the control of the man's reason. If that were so, it would not prove the man responsible. "The will" would be responsible, and not the man. It would be as foolish to blame a man for the act of a "free" will, as to blame a horse for the action of its rider.