34 The Universe and Life 



fore? Or do sensations, feelings, purposes, and the 

 like, affect motions, behavior, arrangements of ma- 

 terials, structure? If they do, then physical and 

 chemical changes, motions, occur in a different way 

 after the appearance of mental phenomena. If they 

 do, then as time passes there is development in the 

 laws of motion; new laws of motion appear in later 

 periods of time; laws of motion that could not be 

 known or predicted from what happens in earher 

 periods. If this is the case, then the course of events 

 in later periods could not be computed from a knowl- 

 edge of the conditions in earlier periods. The behavior 

 of men, of yourself and myself, then could not be com- 

 puted and predicted from conditions occurring before 

 man existed — as some have suggested doing — because 

 the data for such a computation did not exist at that 

 early period. Is this really the case? Do new laws of 

 motion indeed occur as mental phenomena come into 

 existence? Do sensations, feelings, and purposes make 

 a difference to the events that occur ? 



There is a doctrine that is widely held, under the 

 name of mechanism — a doctrine that is inclined to 

 present itself as the only legitimate offspring of 

 science — which assumes that new laws of motion do 

 not appear as time passes and new combinations 

 occur. Mechanism assumes that the laws of motion 

 exemplified in the movements of the elementary par- 

 ticles in the earliest periods of time are the only laws 

 of motion, and are the same laws that result in and 

 express all movements that occur in later periods, in- 

 cluding the movements of animals and men. Thus 



