GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

PROBLEM OF FREE WILL 249
associates the unknown thing with the known thing as
members of the same general class, repeats the procedure
in relation to a number" of other unknown things, and
on the basis of the resultant classification draws up a,
formula governing the behaviour of all members of the
class, both those members of it which have been examined
and those which have not* The unknown thing under
investigation is then brought under the formula, with the
result that it is possible to calculate and predict its behaviour.
But if we are to regard this procedure as valid, we must,
it is obvious, assume that a thing is analysablc without
remainder into its pieces and so is capable of classification
in terms of them.
Secondly, if it is to perform the function of prediction,
science must also assume that everything has its complete
cause in the state of affairs from which it took its rise.
Now science cannot help but proceed in this way;
it cannot, that is to say, help assuming that a thing is
only the sum of its parts or pieces and that it is completely
determined by its constituents and origins. Ifany compound
could result from a particular combination of elements,
if the same compound did not always in fact result from that
combination, if a totally or even partially different effect
were to follow the application of what appeared to be the
same cause, then science as an established body of knowledge
would be impossible. Thus the experiments of
science are conducted on the assumption that the universe,
or at any rate that aspect of the universe which science
studies, is like a gigantic piece of machinery, every part
of which is just a collection of smaller parts, and every
event in which is both the cause of its necessary and pre-
dictable result, and is itself the necessary and predictable
result of its cause.
The Extension of Scientific Method to the Treatment of
Human Beings. Nor can science depart from this
standpoint when, it seeks to give an account of a human
being. It cannot, merely because it is concerning itself