CHAPTER SEVEN 



Life as Mechanism 



PERHAPS, the strongest obsession of the mind is 

 the determination to explain whatever attracts its 

 attention. We are so reluctant to confess ignorance 

 that we are quite willing to go round and round in a 

 circle, seemingly satisfied if the argument never ends. 

 We explain the nature of matter by energy, and 

 then explain energy by matter. And, it is only too 

 probable that our absorption in the development of 

 science has increased this tendency to vagueness of 

 thought. Science has so many dazzling achievements 

 to its credit; we have done so many things which 

 seemed to be impossible, that the popular mind is apt 

 to conclude that, if an explanation is given in the 

 name of science, it must be true whether it be under- 

 stood or not. Although men of science are constantly 

 proposing hypotheses which seem to explain phenom- 

 ena and are constantly trying to reduce all phenom- 

 ena to a single principle, they must admit science 

 really teaches that we have no absolute knowledge, 

 because things can be known only by their attributes. 

 Since the time of Newton, we have been sure that no 

 one can state whether a body is at rest, or in motion, 

 and that we can compare merely the relative positions 

 of two bodies. Of late this principle of relativity, 



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