DECLINE OF DETEKMINISM EDDINGTOK 157 



we are to obtain our confidence in the story it tells of the physical 

 universe. 



Physics is becoming difficult to understand. First relativity 

 theory, then quantum theory, then wave mechanics have trans- 

 formed the universe, making it seem ever more fantastic to our 

 minds. Perhaps the end is not yet. But there is another side to 

 this transformation. Naive realism, materialism, the mechanistic 

 hypothesis were simple; but I think that it was only by closing our 

 eyes to the essential nature of experience, relating as it does to the 

 reactions of a conscious being, that they could be made to seem 

 credible. These revolutions of scientific thought are clearing up the 

 deeper contradictions between life and theoretical loiowledge, and 

 the latest phase with its release from determinism marks a great step 

 onward, I will even venture to say that in the present theory of 

 the pliA^sical universe we have at last reached something which a 

 reasonable man might almost believe. 



