MIND AND STATISTICAL LAWS 313 



improbable that each atom has its duty in the brain so 

 precisely allotted that the control of its behaviour would 

 prevail over all possible irregularities of the other atoms. 

 If I have at all rightly understood the processes of my 

 own mind, there is no finicking with individual atoms. 

 I do not think that our decisions are precisely 

 balanced on the conduct of certain key-atoms. Could 

 we pick out one atom in Einstein's brain and say that 

 if it had made the wrong quantum jump there would 

 have been a corresponding flaw in the theory of rela- 

 tivity? Having regard to the physical influences of 

 temperature and promiscuous collision it is impossible 

 to maintain this. It seems that we must attribute to the 

 mind power not only to decide the behaviour of atoms 

 individually but to affect systematically large groups — 

 in fact to tamper with the odds on atomic behaviour. 

 This has always been one of the most dubious points 

 in the theory of the interaction of mind and matter. 



Interference with Statistical Laws. Has the mind power 

 to set aside statistical laws which hold in inorganic 

 matter? Unless this is granted its opportunity of inter- 

 ference seems to be too circumscribed to bring about 

 the results which are observed to follow from mental 

 decisions. But the admission involves a genuine 

 physical difference between inorganic and organic (or, 

 at any rate, conscious) matter. I would prefer to avoid 

 this hypothesis, but it is necessary to face the issue 

 squarely. The indeterminacy recognised in modern 

 quantum theory is only a partial step towards freeing 

 our actions from deterministic control. To use an 

 analogy — we have admitted an uncertainty which may 

 take or spare human lives; but we have yet to find an 

 uncertainty which may upset the expectations of a life- 



