300 HUMANISM xvi 



experience. Astrology, for example, rests on the same 

 assumption as the most scientific Determinism, and only 

 carries it one step further. It represents as calculable fact 

 what Science as yet is content to treat as an unattained 

 ideal, and so far from being intrinsically absurd the claim 

 of astrology should be what every man of science must in 

 theory aspire to. For if it is true, as Science assumes, 

 that the universe is a fully determined and connected 

 system, it ought theoretically to be possible to start in it 

 from any changes which occur at any point, and, if we 

 know them well enough to trace out their connexions, to 

 calculate out the determinate alterations they must entail 

 at any other point. Why not, therefore, observe the 

 wanderings of the planets, and predict thereby whether 

 our neighbour s dog is destined to recover from the 

 mange ? Nothing can be so lofty as to tear itself away 

 from the causal connexion wherewith Science grasps it, 

 nothing so mean as to escape from its clutches. Scientific 

 law cares for the least as for the greatest. 



The conception then of law has proved our magic 

 passport to the order of nature. It has worked so well 

 that many of us have quite forgotten its homely and 

 human origin, and abstracting it from its context, have 

 grown to regard it with superstitious reverence. It is 

 often looked upon as a magical and a priori thing, which 

 has no origin in the experience it controls and no 

 dependence on the nature which obeys it. We even 

 hope by thus exalting it to extract from it a guarantee 

 that the course of nature, which has heretofore behaved 

 conformably with our idea of law, will for ever continue 

 to show itself thus amenable to our needs. But we may 

 postulate and proclaim a priori necessities of thought as 

 much as ever we please ; we cannot prove that it is an a 

 priori necessity of thought that the course of nature 

 should for ever conform to our a priori necessities of 

 thought. And even if it were, it would not set at rest 

 the question as to what can guarantee a complete harmony 

 between our thought and things. 



But of all such a priori thinking our wishes are the 



