xvi FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY 301 



fathers. The truth is much simpler and more prosaic. 

 We have found that by assuming all events to be 

 determined by laws which (by a process of continuous 

 approximation) we can discover and formulate, we can 

 reduce chaos to cosmos, and control our lives. But Law 

 means Determinism. It means that there are series of 

 events such that, once we know their law, we can start 

 from A and predict B, and then C, and then D, and so 

 on for ever, in an absolutely certain sequence. If we 

 choose to believe that anything was able and likely to 

 follow upon anything else, the conception of law would 

 be abrogated. But if we choose to believe in law, we 

 believe that the course of events is in principle calculable 

 and predictable. And if we discover enough laws, 

 i.e. hit upon formulas which work, we can, more or less 

 approximately, forecast what is going to happen and take 

 measures accordingly. 



This then is the true reason why we all have a bias 

 towards Determinism, in so far as we sanction and pursue 

 the aim of Science. We will to believe in law, and law 

 involves determination, so that Determinism seems to 

 become the price of prediction. So whenever we want to 

 forecast the future, we turn Determinists, and calculate 

 as though the future were already determined. We must 

 do this, or give up the attempt at prediction. In so far 

 as a thing is free to act thus or otherwise, its action 

 is unpredictable. This then is the meaning of call 

 ing Determinism the universal postulate of Science 

 as such. 



But are the postulates of Science true ? Of this 

 nothing can assure us but experience, and experience 

 pursued to the point at which nothing new can happen 

 any longer. In our experience this is not (yet ?) true. 

 Novelties are still intruding on us daily. And so in 

 point of fact our scientific guesses are often wrong in 

 detail, and deficient in exactitude. In all the sciences 

 laws of nature are being rejected, re-enacted, revised 

 and re-modelled daily. They are true only in so far 

 as they work, and are able to anticipate results which 



