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Classification of the Sci.
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gain a clear apprehension of the meaning of this too abstract statement, it may be well to compare a purposeless with a quasipurposeful action. Take, then, any case of the action of a physical force obeying the law of energy. Here synchronous with each geometrical configuration of the particles concerned there have to be, by virtue of the particular law of force between them, corresponding acceleration of the motion of each and every one of them. Thus, the two quantities that the law connects are in their own nature quite unrelated to one another. The accelerations, it is true, by integration with respect to time, necessarily affect the velocities and directions of motion; and these, in their turn, in like manner work out changes of configuration. Yet if the initial motions are varied, the initial configurations remaining the same, the resulting configurations