Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/24

 by his law of gravitation. But he left no hint why, in the nature of things, there should be any stresses at all. The arbitrary motions of the bodies were thus explained by the arbitrary stresses between material bodies, conjoined with their spatiality, their mass, and their initial states of motion. By introducing stresses — in particular the law of gravitation — instead of the welter of detailed transformations of motion, he greatly increased the systematic aspect of Nature. But he left all the factors of the system — more particularly, mass and stress — in the position of detached facts devoid of any season for their compresence. He thus illustrated a great philosophic truth, that a dead Nature can give no reasons. All ultimate reasons are in terms of aim at value. A dead Nature aims at nothing. It is the essence of life that it exists for its own sake, as the intrinsic reaping of value.

Thus, for Newtonians, Nature yielded no