We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of itsfuture. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, andall positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough tosubmit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatestbodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be