310 CAUSATION 



I do not think it means the end of all true science. After 

 all if they try to enter we can pitch them out again, as 

 Einstein pitched out the respectable causal demon who 

 called himself Gravitation. It is a privation to be no 

 longer able to stigmatise certain views as unscientific 

 superstition; but we are still allowed, if the circumstances 

 justify it, to reject them as bad science. 



Volition. From the philosophic point of view it is of deep 

 interest to consider how this affects the freedom of the 

 human mind and spirit. A complete determinism of 

 the material universe cannot be divorced from deter- 

 minism of the mind. Take, for example, the prediction 

 of the weather this time next year. The prediction is 

 not likely ever to become practicable, but "orthodox" 

 physicists are not yet convinced that it is theoretically 

 impossible; they hold that next year's weather is already 

 predetermined. We should require extremely detailed 

 knowledge of present conditions, since a small local 

 deviation can exert an ever-expanding influence. 

 We must examine the state of the sun so as to predict 

 the fluctuations in the heat and corpuscular radiation 

 which it sends us. We must dive into the bowels of the 

 earth to be forewarned of volcanic eruptions which may 

 spread a dust screen over the atmosphere as Mt. Katmai 

 did some years ago. But further we must penetrate into 

 the recesses of the human mind. A coal strike, a great 

 war, may directly change the conditions of the atmo- 

 sphere; a lighted match idly thrown away may cause 

 deforestation which will change the rainfall and climate. 

 There can be no fully deterministic control of inorganic 

 phenomena unless the determinism governs mind itself. 

 Conversely if we wish to emancipate mind we must to 

 some extent emancipate the material world also. There 



