208 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 



by another event B, they stated functional relations 

 between certain events at certain times, which we called 

 determinants, and other events at earlier or later times 

 or at the same time. We were unable to find any a priori 

 category involved : the existence of scientific laws ap- 

 peared as a purely empirical fact, not necessarily universal, 

 except in a trivial and scientifically useless form. We 

 found that a system with one set of determinants may very 

 likely have other sets of a quite different kind, that, for 

 example, a mechanically determined system may also be 

 ideologically or volitionally determined. Finally we 

 considered the problem of free will : here we found that 

 the reasons for supposing volitions to be determined are 

 strong but not conclusive, and we decided that even if 

 volitions are mechanically determined, that is no reason 

 for denying freedom in the sense revealed by intro- 

 spection, or for supposing that mechanical events are not 

 determined by volitions. The problem of free will versus 

 determinism is therefore, if we were right, mainly illusory, 

 but in part not yet capable of being decisively solved. 



