Correspondence. 
log 
1882.] 
HYLO-PHENOMENALISM THE SUMMA SCIENTLB. 
“ Coelum ipsum petimus Scientia.” 
To the Editor of the Journal of Science. 
Sir,— May I venture to claim, in the interest of Science and 
Philosophy, a small space in your Journal for a few' brief remarks 
in further elucidation and development of some recent contribu- 
tions to your pages by C. N., under the title of Hylozoism, or 
Materialism, as opposed to Animism ? Without further preamble 
let me state that the Hylozoic theorem of Life and the World 
may be formulated as the utter self-evident impossibility — in the 
nature of things — to transcend or escape in any way from the 
limits of our own anatomy, — of our own conscious Ego, — the 
Non-Ego, or falsely so-called “ external Universe,” being but 
the objective, or projeCtive, image of our own Egoity, not the 
vera effigies, or absolute substance, of any “thing” external to 
Self. In other words, that all “things” or entities, or non- 
entities, — abstract or concrete, — from Divinity downwards, are 
merely ideal or phenomenal imagery of our own Mind — the essen- 
tial physical basis, proplasm, or officina of which is the vesiculo- 
neurine or grey tissue of the encephalic hemispherical ganglia : 
that, in still more concise terms, Being is Perception and Con- 
ception (Ideation), which apparently two abstractions are virtually 
one, — the function, namely, of a somatic organism, — itself 11 fons 
etorigo ” of all Cognition. On this view of Nature and Mind I 
trust your enlightened readers will be enabled to realise without 
difficulty, and as a self-evident faCt and principle, my corollary, 
that the only “ Spirit ” or “ Anima Mundi ” accessible to us is 
the animal life on the earth, and, in the last analysis, our own 
consciousness, by which alone we feel “ we live, move, and have 
our being,” or, in less mystic phraseology, are cognizant of mo- 
tion and sensation. So that no objection can be valid against 
Hylo-idealism, on the score of any contradiction between Deter- 
minism or Necessity, and Self-Determinism or Free Will ; the 
seemingly two being really— i.e., ideally, or phenomenally, or 
relatively — identical ; the Absolute being to Man an inaccessible 
Terra Incognita. Let me illustrate the reconciliation still further 
by quoting a fallacy embodied in a couplet of Pope’s “Universal 
Prayer ” : — 
“And binding Nature fast in Fate, 
Left free the human Will.” 
Surely it is clear and self-evident, on this theorem of Hylo* 
Idealism, — the sole legitimate creed, as I contend, of modern 
