nature of the determinism has to be understood differently in the two cases), whereas with what is central and essential in the third group of facts it is entirely inadequate to deal.

Whether Determinism is an effective postulate or not, and how, when adequate and fruitful, it is exactly to be interpreted, depends on the ultimate nature of the substance whose movements or activities it is concerned with interpreting. We require Ideas or working concepts as to the nature of the substances between which causal interaction takes place, as well as Ideas concerning the nature of that causal interaction itself.

Thus, in dealing with inorganic phenomena, Science has adopted the concepts of the molecule, the atom, and the electron. In attempting to deal with organic phenomena on the basis of the same suppositions as to the nature of substance, it has found itself unable to give complete explanation of the facts, and it has been obliged to adopt the further concepts of individuality and development. Finally, in attempting to explain mental activity, the concept of freedom, which has been found indispensable for giving any meaning to human action, has sprung up in direct antagonism to the deterministic postulate.

Let us consider these points more closely :

1. The concept of the atom. The atom (or the electron, which seems likely to take its place as representing the ultimate nature of substance for physical Science) is conceived as an indivisible, invariable force-centre, inherently possessing certain fundamental force-attributes; and upon this view of the ultimate nature of (material) substance is based 'the conception of a mechanism of the universe which attempts to represent all perceptible events as the motion of invariable atoms according to invariable laws.'*

The mechanism of the heavens, of which this mechanism of the universe is the imaginative extension, furnishes the best example of what such a conception involves. It is needless to say that the extended conception of a thorough-going mechanical (atomistic) explanation of the universe has not the same justification as that of the mechanical explanation of the planetary system. That could be the case only were this explanation to interpret the whole course of the universe as intelligibly as the motions of the planets and their satellites are interpreted by the laws of gravitation and inertia. In the one case the Given is completely explained on the ground of the mechanical hypothesis; in the other it is far indeed from admitting of any such complete explanation.

Thus, the attempt to explain the facts of development by the interactions of atoms that mutually attract or repel each other is far from being satisfactory. We need here other concepts or categories than those of 'atom' and 'inherent force.' The thorough

* Dr. Christoph Sigwart, 'Logik.' vol. ii., ch. v., § 100, 11. English translation

by Helen Dendy, p. 469.

going atomist tells us that each individuality is only a collective aggregate of atoms which interact by virtue of their inherent forces, and that the development of these individualities, their disposition to pass through successive stages, is already pre-established in the original configuration of the atoms relative to one another. It need hardly be pointed out that upon this view 'life' and 'mind' are by-products, the world's course being already mechanically predetermined. Thus, consistent atomists regard Consciousness as epiphenomenal, as a mere spectator of its own predetermined changes.

2. Truer conceptions of development and of individuality are obviously needed when we come to deal with organic life. Let us first consider the meaning of 'development,' as this meaning has itself gradually developed. In the meaning of the term 'organic process' or 'development' we can, as Dr. Sigwart says, distinguish several stages of growth.

First, we have the original meaning of the word, a mere unfolding, as in the opening of a rolled-up scroll or the expansion of a bud into the full-blown flower. This conception is then enlarged, so as to take in at the same time the idea of growth, a growth not only in volume, but also in differentiation. This meaning also is illustrated by the development of a flower-bud. Not only do its parts unfold, but they also change in size and shape, and their tissues become continually less and less homogeneous. A still fuller meaning is gained when all the particular stages of the process are explicitly referred to one developing individual, and an antithesis is drawn between the beginning from which and the end towards which the subject develops. The end of the development is then conceived as revealing what the beginning contained, as the oak reveals the true nature of the acorn. Finally, when the concept of development is made to extend 'beyond particular individuals to the whole range of the organic universe,' it has reached its deepest meaning; but in establishing this we find a difficulty which lies in our inability to fix definitely upon 'the subject to which this universal development is to be ascribed.'

Now, from the point of view of our logical inquiry, the main thing to note is that, though we may still profitably adhere to our deterministic postulate in the investigation of organic as in that of inorganic forms, we have to introduce into the former investigation a new conception of causal explanation. The earlier stages of the growth of an organism cannot be said to account for the later stages in the development in the same sense as that in which the original distribution of atoms in space can be said to account for the later distribution of these atoms. For the change we call 'development' is always qualitative as well as quantitative, and atomistic explanation practically ignores all qualitative changes. Thus, in the case of organic development, we cannot account for any one phase by merely pointing out the phases antecedent to it. All we can truly say is that the phenomena of the beginning of a life are imperfect manifestations of a principle which is more completely manifested in the later stages. Hence, the study of antecedents gives us the least distinct clue to this inner principle. The foresttree, with its deep-striking, ramifying root, its massively towering trunk, and its far-spreading system of branches, more truly expresses the nature of its species than did the embryonic infantplant contained in the seed from which it sprang. The strongly developed root-system that is able to withstand the mighty strain and leverage of the storm-wind was but feebly represented by the minute and unbranched radicle; the giant branches upholding their dense cloud of luxuriant foliage are more explicitly significant than the tiny and delicate plumule; the fully differentiated tissues of leaf and twig, of pith and bast and woody fibre, were but dimly foreshadowed in the soft, rudimentary features of the small white folded embryo. Most significant of all is the mature tree in its flowering and fruiting seasons, for an organism is never so truly or so explicitly itself as in that process of reproduction which is the culminating-point of its development. In the physical, no less than in the moral, world does the saying hold good: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'

3. That the end explains the beginning in a profounder and completer sense than that in which the beginning explains the end is a principle that applies to all developing life as such, whether the life, like that of a tree, is unconscious of its own development, or is conscious, or at least partially conscious, of it, as in the case of the life of Mind. This type of explanation, which is known as teleological, is indeed characteristic of all our attempts to understand conscious experience. Just as a finished essay explains a writer's idea far more truly than do the first rough, incoherent jottings-as these jottings, though they do explain something, though they tell us how the thoughts struggled into being, and give us the early history of the idea, yet do not give us its true meaning-so Man is explained, indeed, both by his past and by his future, but more truly by his future-by his destiny-than by his past. The teleological explanation reaches deeper than the v genetic.

The attempt, when dealing with mental development, to explain the subsequent completely by means of its antecedents inevitably issues in fallacy. Thus, even if we were to grant that the religious sentiment was at first no other than a belief in ghosts, we could not reasonably go on to argue that, since the religious sentiment of to-day is but a development of the religious sentiment of primitive man, it must therefore still be essentially a mere transfigured belief in ghosts. We might just as profitably argue that, since the first

efforts of Science produced nothing but fanciful conjecture, therefore Science must be at bottom a mere collection of fancies.

But it is when we come to deal with the self-conscious activities of moral beings that we most clearly realize the limits of all deterministic-i.e., of all inductive-explanation. For any attempt to explain morality on the basis of determinism completely stultifies that which it seeks to explain. Where there is no freedom, there is no responsibility, no duty, no ideal to be striven after-for why should we strive against the inevitable ? - so that morality is a question no longer of character or even of conduct, but merely of customary behaviour ; and ethics a science no longer of what ought to be, but of what has been and must be.

With the conception of Freedom, and still more so with the further concepts of Immortality and God-concepts needed, we believe, for explaining the deepest rooted of our moral difficultieswe leave the deterministic postulate far behind. The category of mechanical causation must be transcended. What categories of explanation there may be which can transcend it-this is a question which, when systematically conceived, forms the main problem of a Philosophical Logic.

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INDEX, VERBAL AND ANALYTIC.