76 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



(i) " T/ie Production of Motion and the Determination 

 of Motion are absolutely and essentially different!' 



Applying this to living beings Mr. Croll rightly 

 observes: "In the production of organic forms from the 

 simplest up to the most special and complex in the 

 vegetable and animal kingdom two things require to be 

 accounted for, viz.: (i) the motion of the matter of 

 which they are composed, and (2) its disposition or 

 arrangement with reference to time and space. . . . 

 Not only must something produce the motion, but some- 

 thing must determine it also. . . . To assign a sufficient 

 cause for the one does not in the least degree satisfy the 

 mind as to the presence of the other. To account for 

 the motion of a ball does not account for why it moves, 

 say, east rather than west or in any other possible 

 direction. 



" The grand and fundamental question then is, What 

 is it that determines or directs the action of the forces 

 concerned in the production of molecular change ? . . . 

 We must not only know the paths taken by the particles, 

 but must be able also to explain why the paths are 

 taken. . . What causes the molecules and particles of 

 living nature to arrange themselves into organic forms ? 

 Is it a Force ? " 



These questions bring Mr. Croll to his second con- 

 clusion : — 



(2) The action of a Force cannot be Determined by 

 a Force nor can Motion be Determined by Motion : — 



"That the action of a force cannot be determined by 

 the action of a force is demonstrable thus. If the action 

 of a force is determined by an act, then this determining 

 act must itself have been determined by a preceding 

 act, and this preceding act by another, and so on in like 

 manner to infinity. 



