WCP2846

[1]¹

Clayton House,

Clifton Park,

Bristol

26^th September [19]05

My dear D^r. Wallace,

From my point of view, which I give merely for what it is worth, you can't avoid metaphysical issues if you are to treat the subject as you suggest.

I don't pose as a metaphysician[.] My aim is a much more humble one — namely to try and indicate where science ends and metaphysics begins. Science deals with the data of experience and explains in terms of conditions. Find the antecedents of a given datum of experience (such as the present configuration of the Solar System) and you have the scientific explanation. Agency, Force, Cause (in the sense of the agency by which the configuration changes) are non—scientific = metaphysical conceptions. [2]² I think physics is now quite clear on this head and men of Science other than physicists are coming into line. Purpose in nature is a metaphysical conception: so is the human will as an agency.

I don't know whether you will find for much that is [1 word illeg.] in the proofs of some of my section which I head under a separate cover. But one of them will probably give all you want of the Münsterberg[?] Principle pattern matter.

I don't know Cook's book & have not heard anything of it. Nor do I know much about Croft Heller[?] from what I have heard (& from a cursory glance at one volume) I don't think I should have much sympathy with his treatment.

Whatever terms you employ, for goodness sake keep [1 word illeg.] a the [2] two types of causation (a) in terms of antecedent conditions (b) in terms of some agency by which observable sequences originate. If in your treatment of human faculty you fail to find an explanation in terms of (a) don't skip over to (b) as if it were in the same universe of discrouse.

I haven't tackled Weismanns³ new book yet.

I am sure you will forgive any seeming abruptness in the expression of my views.

Your very truly | C. Lloyd Morgan⁴ [signature]