122 THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



lations possess — all failing to satisfy our canons of 

 legitimate inference (p. 59) — they still suffice to mark 

 the distinction between the popular or metaphysical 

 conception of cause as enforcement, and the scientific 

 conception of cause as the routine of experience. Every 

 association of inherent necessity with secondary causes is 

 a passage from physics to metaphysics, from knowledge 

 to fantasy. Historically, I think, the whole association 

 can be traced back through the old spiritualism to the 

 sequences of motion which the will as a first cause can 

 apparently enforce. Here, then, it befits us to ask 

 two questions : Does the will in any way really account 

 for motion ? Is there any ground for supposing the will 

 to be an arbitrary first cause ? 



^ 5. — Is Will a First Cause? 



Now, in attempting to answer these questions 

 scientifically we must bear in mind that what we term 

 will is only known to us in association with consciousness, 

 and that we can only infer consciousness where we find 

 a certain type of nervous system. Does will as an 

 apparently spontaneous producer of motion throw any 

 light on the mystery of motion ? Does it in any way 

 explain the particular sequences motions take? To be 

 consistent we shall have to suppose, with Aristotle, that 

 every phase of motion is the direct product of a conscious 

 being. Let us return to the example of the stone. 

 Apparently, by the arbitrary action of my will, I set the 

 stone in motion. I appear in doing this as a first cause. 

 But a complex sequence of motions now arises. Each 

 stage of this sequence I can conceive myself mechanically 

 describing, but I am quite unable to assert the necessity, 

 the why of these stages. For example, the stone falls to 

 the ground, and I can say approximately how many feet 

 it will fall in the first and in the following seconds. That 

 is the result of past experience used to predict the 

 future, the result of the classification of phenomena 

 resumed in the law of gravitation ; but this law does not 



