1 62 Life and Matter [chap.ix. 



to contemplate anything outside a certain 

 scheme : it is an internal truth within the 

 assigned boundaries, and is quite consistent 

 with psychical interference and indeterminate- 

 ness, as soon as those boundaries are ignored ; 

 determinateness is not part of the essence of 

 dynamical doctrine, it is arrived at by the 

 tacit assumption that no undynamical or 

 hyperdynamical agencies exist : in short, by 

 that process of abstraction which is invari- 

 ably necessary for simplicity, and indeed for 

 possibility, of methodical human treatment. 

 Everyone engaged in scientific research is 

 aware that if exuberant charwomen, or 

 intelligent but mischievous students (who 

 for the moment may be taken to represent 

 life and mind respectively) are admitted into 

 a laboratory and given full scope for their 

 activities, the subsequent scientific results 

 though still, no doubt, in some strained sense, 

 concordant with law and order are apt to 

 be too complicated for investigation ; where- 

 fore there is usually an endeavour to exclude 

 these incalculable influences, and to make 



