And yet the speculation is interesting. For the distinction between the two cases lies deep. It has nothing (let me say again) to do with free will. It has nothing to do with our ignorance of facts. It has nothing to do with our intellectual insufficiency. It is due to a fundamental difference between the uniformities of matter and the regularities of mind. Perfect foresight requires perfect repetition, and in the psychic sphere perfect repetition can never happen. Every self is unique; all its experiences are unique; and these unique wholes are not compounded of interchangeable elements obeying identical laws. They do not alter by mere addition, subtraction, or rearrangement of parts. They grow. And the sequence of one phase upon another faintly resembles that which would prevail in the imaginary universe of which I spoke just now, the universe where all contemporaneous events were treated as the single effect of the immediate past and the single cause of the immediate future. Of such a universe I observed that it would have a history, but could have no science. And though we cannot go so far when speaking of psychic unities, though we cannot rule out psychology or sociology, it must be admitted that no regularities which observation discloses can ever possess the precision which we theoretically attribute to material mechanism. Instructive likenesses we shall find in abundance, complete determination we may assume if we please; but “laws,” in the full and strict sense of the term, we shall not find, for they are not there. NOTE The shortcomings of mechanism have been discussed by M. Bergson in a manner which no other thinker is likely to rival. He has, however, usually dealt with the subject in connection with _freedom_; whereas in this section I have only dealt with it in connection with foreknowledge, repetition, and what I have termed the doctrine of “negligibility.” He approaches it from the side of reality. I approach it from the side of inductive inference and the law of universal causation. FOOTNOTES: [11] Extract from Morgan’s “Habit and Instinct,” page 40. “A young chick two days old, for example, had learnt to pick out pieces of yolk from others of white of egg. I cut little bits of orange-peel of about the same size as the pieces of yolk, and one of these was soon seized, but at once relinquished, the chick shaking his head. Seizing another, he held it for a moment in the bill, but then dropped it and scratched at the base of his beak. That was enough; he could not again be induced to seize a piece of orange-peel. The obnoxious material was now removed, and pieces of yolk of egg substituted, but they were left untouched, being probably taken for orange-peel. Subsequently, he looked at the yolk with hesitation, but presently pecked doubtfully, not seizing, but merely touching. Then he pecked again, seized, and swallowed.” LECTURE IX TENDENCIES OF SCIENTIFIC BELIEF I