Page:Mind and the Brain (1907).djvu/178

 Moreover, the difference between the laws of nature and those of the understanding does not need deduction by reasoning from an abstract principle; it is better to say that it is directly observable, and this is how I find that it presents itself to us.

The essential law of nature is relatively easy to formulate, as it is comprised in the very definition of law. It simply consists in the sentence: uniformity under similar conditions. We might also say: a constant relation between two or several phenomena, which can also be expressed in a more abstract way by declaring that the law of nature rests on the combination of two notions, identity and constancy.

On the other hand, the laws of our psychical activity partly correspond to the same tendencies, and it would be easy to demonstrate that the microcosm of our thoughts is governed by laws which are also an expression of these two combined notions of constancy and identity. It is, above all, in the working of the intellectual machine, the best known and the most clearly analysed up till now, that we see the application of this mental law which resembles, as we say, on certain sides, the physical law: and the best we can do for our demonstration will doubtless be to dissect our reasoning powers. Reason, a process essential to thought in action, is developed