THE MECHANISM OF NATURE 



309 



assuredly know no reason why they should stand in this relation, 

 and we can only say of them that they occur together, but that 

 nature does not tell us why. 



They who assert that the production of living beings out of 

 inorganic matter would show that matter is the efficient cause of 

 mind, totally mistake the nature of scientific evidence ; for we may 

 say of physical events that while they run on lines that are so far 

 parallel that one may be the sign which leads us to expect others, 

 the bridge which joins them has never been found in nature. 



As matters are at present we have the same sort of reason 

 for confidence that certain psychical events will follow certain 

 physical events and that certain physical events will follow cer- 

 tain psychical ones ; that the sensation of vision will follow the 

 opening of our eyes, and that a quickened pulse will follow 

 anger; that we have for confidence in the physical order of 

 nature. 



Even the fantastical desire to show we can do as we like by 

 some capricious action, is no more than a shrewd witness might 

 have expected ; and psychical events are as orderly as physical 

 events. Surely no one supposes that while physical matters are 

 orderly, psychical matters are given over to chance. 



" For what is meant by liberty, when applied to voluntary 

 actions .-' We cannot surely mean that actions have so little con- 

 nection with motives, inclinations, and circumstances that one 

 doth not follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the 

 other, and that one affords no inference by which we can con- 

 clude the existence of the other. For these are plain and 

 acknowledged matters of fact." ^ 



If any one assert that while he acts from motives, like a 

 rational being, and in the way he might reasonably be expected 

 to act, he is nevertheless free to do as he likes, because there 

 is no necessary connection between his actions and his motives, 

 he must remember that, while no one disputes his freedom, we 

 know no necessary connection between physical phenomena, and 

 that, if the stone I drop from my hand were to assert that it is 

 free to do as it likes, I should have to admit that, for all I know 

 to the contrary, this assertion may be true ; for all I know of the 



1 Hume, as quoted by Huxley. 



