(5) The next ontological problem concerns the mode of inter relation between the various parts or modes or units of reality. Is each in turn absolutely determined by the others, or is there room in this universe for a measure of what is variously called spontaneity, novelty, originality, freedom or self-determination? The Mechanistic theory, or simply "Mechanism," is the view that the world is a "block-universe," in which everything is once for all causally predetermined, so that a sufficiently clever demon could accurately read the future and the past from the present condition of things. Such a view is usually linked with Material ism, though it may also be found in conjunction with other onto logical theories. The opposed views are variously named accord ing to the different points which are especially stressed. The philosophy of Creative Evolution (Bergson) and the theory of Emergence (Lloyd Morgan and Alexander) lay stress on the originality of natural events and on the utter impossibility of anticipating the character of most results from a mere knowl edge of the laws of matter and motion—especially so in the case of vital phenomena and the higher activities of human beings. Teleology vindicates the reality of purposiveness in Nature—the direction of processes to the realization of certain ends in front of them, as distinguished from their determination entirely by mechanical forces behind them, and Libertarianism is the view which vindicates more particularly the freedom of man's will. An extreme form of anti-Mechanism is known as Tychism, accord ing to which everything just happens by chance. The view which upholds "Necessity" in Nature is in one of its forms at least (Spinoza, for example) essentially a denial of Tychism and a defence of the prevalence of law and order throughout the universe, without, however, denying the reality of freedom as self-determination. Such "Necessitarianism" must be distinguished
from Mechanism and its offspring, Determinism.
(6) Lastly, there is the question whether there is anything in the universe which may be called divine. Atheism gives a negative answer to this question. The principal forms which the affirmative answers assume are known as Theism, Deism and Pantheism respectively; there are also less articulate forms. Theism is the belief in a personal God, the Creator in some sense of Nature and Man, distinct from both yet in some ways in or near them. Deism and Pantheism endeavour to avoid the anthropomorphic tendencies of Theism by conceiving God as impersonal or, more correctly, as supra-personal. But whereas Deism, like Theism, separates God from the world, Pantheism identifies them—"the One and All" is at once God and the universe. All the historic churches are theistic ; many of the so-called freethinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries were deists; the leading Stoics, in ancient times, and Spinoza, in modern times, are among the classical pantheists. Materialism is usually associated with Atheism. Other forms of Monism usually tend towards Pantheism. Idealistic Pluralism is usually associated with Theism. Other forms of Pluralism may be either theistic or deistic, but as a matter of fact are mostly theistic.