Determinism

Abstract

THE wide circulation and attractive style of Sir James Jeans's book, “The Mysterious Universe”, will probably mark a step in the crystallisation of ideas towards the rejection of any mechanical system. But many will ask, Why go so far, and go no farther? Why have we dethroned a mechanical system and set pure mathematics to reign in its stead? The essence of a mechanical system, or to give it its more general name, Determinism, requires a single time sequence, proceeding in one direction, and postulates that each state is an inference from any past state, the necessary major premiss being Causation. One immense consequence of Einstein's ideas has scarcely yet been touched,—as the quantum theory undermined Causation, so relativity undermines Determinism and every other ethical theory by abolishing the time sequence.