IN THE REALM OF MIND. 347 



" interfering " with them is meant any power of 

 altering their own essential energies — then it is 

 true that no volitions of ours can interfere with 

 them. But then it cannot be too often repeated 

 that, in this sense, phenomena are NOT governed 

 by Invariable Laws ; because phenomena are never 

 the result of individual Forces, but are always the 

 result of the conditions under which several Forces 

 are combined, and these conditions are always 

 variable. If, again, "interference" means or in- 

 cludes the power of setting natural Forces (Laws) 

 to work under new conditions, then it is the reverse 

 of truth to affirm that they cannot be "interfered" 

 with. Man controls facts only because (in this 

 sense) he can, and he does, interfere with Laws. 

 His volitions can, and do, govern those combina- 

 tions of Force which are the immediate cause 

 of all phenomena. 



There is no fault in philosophical discussion 

 more pestilent than that of using common words 

 in some technical or artificial sense, without 

 any warning to the reader, (often apparently 

 without any consciousness on the part of the 

 writer,) that ideas fundamentally involved in 



