Mentality and Self-Consciousness 81 



Whether the exercise of free will or volition 

 involves any violation of the fundamental prin- 

 ciples of physics and chemistry is a question on 

 which there is much difference of opinion. The 

 existence of free will is being made known to us 

 directly through our self-consciousness, and it 

 would be very dogmatic and unscientific for us to 

 reject the testimony of our self-consciousness in 

 so far as it furnishes us with a basis for our belief 

 in free will, but yet to accept it in so far as it in- 

 forms us of the operation of the laws of nature. 



According to the classical conception of natural 

 laws the behavior of every physico-chemical sys- 

 tem is completely predetermined, whereas the ex- 

 ercise of free will introduces factors which are 

 arbitrary and self-determined. Since there can- 

 not be two independent systems of governing 

 forces acting in the same place and at the same 

 time, we must either regard free will as a delu- 

 sion, or we must assume that living matter does 

 not come under the domain of those natural laws 

 which govern physico-chemical systems. 



The classical principles of physics and chem- 

 istry, which seem to signify predetermination to 

 the exclusion of free will, were derived from ex- 

 periments upon isolated physico-chemical systems 

 and deal only with the effects of simple elemen- 



