# Blatchford denied guilt, but retained public protection

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH03.P002](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03.P002/#char=912,1022): "He has a strange idea that he will make it easier to forgive sins by saying that there are no sins to forgive."

The target is a specific determinist argument. In *God and My Neighbour* (first published 1903; inspected in Project Gutenberg #6172), the section ‘Determinism: Can Man Sin Against God?’ makes the creator responsible for the capacities and choices of the creature. Chesterton's paradox turns that denial of culpability against the idea of forgiveness: pardoning a responsible wrongdoer and denying responsibility are different operations. [Blatchford, ‘Determinism’](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6172/pg6172-images.html).

Blatchford's *Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog* (1906; inspected in the 1918 Boni and Liveright edition, Gutenberg #43466) gives grounds for qualifying the next charge, that his mercy means anarchy. Chapter IV denies divine sin while retaining an ethics of beneficial and harmful conduct, including justified defence against injury. Chapter XII denies deserved punishment even for a child-murderer, but concludes that he must be restrained to protect others. The dispute is therefore about guilt and the justification of coercion, rather than whether society may prevent further violence. Chesterton accurately finds a rejection of culpability; the further inference to anarchy is his polemical judgment, not Blatchford's stated policy. [*Not Guilty*, chapters IV and XII](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43466/43466-h/43466-h.htm).

## Sources

- [Robert Blatchford, God and My Neighbour, Project Gutenberg #6172](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6172/pg6172-images.html), ‘Determinism’, subsection ‘Can Man Sin Against God?’, opening argument
- [Robert Blatchford, Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog, Boni and Liveright, 1918](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43466/43466-h/43466-h.htm), Chapter IV, ‘The Beginnings of Morals’, opening definitions; chapter XII, ‘Guilty or Not Guilty?’, opening murder case and concluding paragraphs beginning ‘I ask for a verdict in the prisoner's favour; but I cannot ask that he be set at liberty’
- [Google Books bibliographic record, Not Guilty, Clarion Press, 1906](https://books.google.com/books/about/Not_Guilty.html?hl=en&id=2EJYAAAAMAAJ&output=html_text), Publication metadata: Clarion Press, 1906, 261 pages

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