The term mechanical is often used in the sense of “lacking life or spirit” (“Century Dictionary,” p. 3679). This is justifiable in so far only as when we speak of mechanical phenomena we do not mean psychical or any other phenomena. It is true that that which makes this or that idea respond to a certain stimulus is not a mechanical but a mental quality, but the action itself, in so far as it is a motion, is and remains mechanical. Thus it happens that the laws of mechanics, far from being anti-spiritual, are the means by which we learn to understand and objectively to represent the action of mental phenomena. In this connection attention may be called to the efforts of modern logicians to construct thinking machines which will perform the work of mental operations in a purely mechanical way. You propose the problem by adjusting certain indicators; then you turn the crank, and the machine does the rest. The results will come out with unfailing exactness. The attempt made to construct thinking machines cannot as yet be called successful. Nevertheless they are not impossibilities. Calculating machines of various constructions are in practical use and doing satisfactory work, not only in addition and subtraction but also in multiplication and division, and even in extracting roots and in raising numbers to higher powers. Calculations are undoubtedly one kind of thought, and if calculations can be performed by machines, there is no theoretical reason why we should not be able to construct logical machines, which shall perform the operations of deductive and even of inductive thought with perfect accuracy. CONCLUSION. Determinism does not make freedom impossible and natural laws do not suppress the spontaneity of nature. Natural laws are not a power forcing a certain mode of action upon things; they are not an oppression of nature. Natural laws are simply a description of nature as nature is. There is no “must” in nature in the sense of compulsion, as if there were two things, (1) a master (i. e. the law) giving a command, and (2) a slave (i. e. the single facts) obeying the command. The situation is not dualistic, but monistic. There is an “is” in nature, and this “is” is constant. There is a certain sameness in nature. In spite of all changes it remains the same; and thus even the apparent irregularities preserve throughout an unvarying consistency. The facts of nature express the character of nature; they are nature herself. Briefly, the “is” of nature (if we are permitted to personify her) does not describe that which nature must do, but that which nature wills to do; it describes how she acts spontaneously, of her own free will, in conformity with her innermost being and consistently with her permanent character.