* 



48 The Universe and Life 



duces new mental states as time passes. And with 

 these it produces new methods of action. It is not true 

 that the thing that has been is the thing which shall 

 be, that the thing that has been done is the thing that 

 shall be done, and there is no new thing under the 

 sun. On the contrary, new things and new methods of 

 action come forth in the process that we call evolu- 

 tion.^ 



It will be observed that this situation makes no dif- 

 ficulties for the practice and formulation of science, 

 if science be considered an observational and experi- 

 mental matter. It is as things come into new relations 

 that new phenomena and new methods of action ap- 

 pear. There is thus always an experimental cause for 

 every diversity of result. There is no obstacle to the 

 complete carrying through of the methods of ex- 

 perimental science, even of objective or purely physi- 

 cal experimental science, since distinctive physical 

 conditions always coexist with different mental states. 

 Experimental determinism holds throughout; and 

 this is what is required for building a science that is a 

 formulation of experience. It is a widespread error to 

 suppose that the possibility of science rests upon the 

 validity of the theory of mechanism. What the up- 

 building of science depends on is merely the principle 

 that what happens depends on the conditions, and 

 that when different things happen, there are different 

 preceding conditions. It does not demand that all the 



1 For related discussions and conclusions, see references given in 

 the note on p. 30. 



