Force and Determinism

Abstract

IN your issue of March 12 (vol. xliii. p. 491), Dr. Oliver J. Lodge characterizes as “perfectly correct” the statement “that, although expenditure of energy is needed to increase the speed of matter, none is needed to alter its direction.” I have looked in vain for some notice of this apparently strange doctrine in your subsequent issues, with the exception that Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan (April 16, p. 558) objects that the direction of motion cannot be changed by purely metaphysical means, or will-power. But passing over this rather important and interesting point with only the observation that Sir John Herschel thought differently—thought, in fact, that “without the power to make some material disposition, to originate some movement, or to change, at least temporarily, the amount of dynamical force appropriate to one or more material molecules, the mechanical results of human or animal volition are inconceivable” (Fortnightly Review, July 1, 1865, vol. i. p. 439)—I desire to call a moment's attention to the first statement alluded to.