FATALISM OR FREEDOM 



tion the biologist recognizes a causal se- 

 quence. When he says that the present 

 activity has been determined by preceding 

 events, he means that the present struc- 

 tural organization of the body reacts to 

 stimulating agents (arising either outside 

 or inside the body) in ways which his ex- 

 perience shows are orderly. We find em- 

 pirically that when the rules or laws of 

 this order are correctly formulated we 

 can use these rules to embrace events past 

 or future which we have not observed and 

 that further observations of similar events 

 conform with them. A causally deter- 

 mined process as the naive biologist em- 

 ploys this expression, Is one whose progress 

 conforms to empirically determined rules. 

 By uncaused action he means events that 

 do not fit Into a unitary system of such 

 orderly processes. 



The naturalist characterizes the causal 

 sequence as mechanistic or deterministic. 

 Living mechanisms conform to the same 

 general rules as dead machines, though 

 the details of the construction and per- 

 formance are very different. What is 

 meant by determinism in biology Is harder 

 to explain, for there Is apt to be a^ 

 metaphysical Implication concealed In it 



[22] 



