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| Isaac Newton |
By the end of the eighteenth century, Isaac
Newton’s theory of universal gravitation was well established. As this theory makes
it possible to predict very accurately the orbits of the bodies in the solar
system, the French astronomer Pierre Simon de Laplace believed he had
sufficient reasons to say the following:
An intelligence that knew all the forces that animate
nature, as well as the respective situation of the beings that make it... could
cover in a single formula the movements of the largest bodies of the universe
and those of the lighter atom. Nothing would be uncertain and both the future
and the past would be present before his eyes.
This assertion became the dogma of
deterministic materialism, a philosophical (not scientific) doctrine asserting that
only matter exists (taking the term broadly) and that the whole history of the
universe is determined. Therefore there is no human freedom, nor
intentionality, nor final causes in nature. There are just efficient causes.
Laplace’s statement can be expressed in more
modern terms:
If we knew the position and the momentum of all the
particles of the universe at a given instant, we could predict all their past
and future development.
