rio Correspondence . [February, 
Physics and Physiology, — that though Fate or Natural Law 
presents itself to our conscious Ego, in the domain of Cosmical 
Science, “ as if” rigidly immutable and inexorable, yet as this 
Law, which includes Gravitation or the self-aCtivity of Matter, is 
one with the law of our own organisation, — is, indeed, as Mr. 
Ward ably shows in your January issue, a purely mental abstrac- 
tion, not an absolute force in “ Nature, as vulgar Realism con- 
ceives it,* — and thus only a fiction, or imaginary or esoteric 
enactment of our own brain, the whole question of Free Will 
and Necessity resolves itself into a Skiamachy, or dance of sha- 
dows. I find this view a perfect Eirenicon on the momentous 
question of free will and human responsibility to any Power 
other than Self. “ We must must,” but the compulsion is none, 
since it is a law of our own nature, and is thus transformed into 
the law of perfeCt Liberty. ExaCt Science has been justly defined 
by some of its most competent contemporary authorities as 
“ only ” reasoned out Common Sense. Surely all Speculation 
which cannot be brought to that test is condemned as anarchic 
by sound Reason, — acknowledged by the ablest apologist of 
Animism and Christianity, Bishop Butler, to be the plenipotent 
judge even of “ Divine Revelation ” itself. Certainly modern 
Nosology has identified all “ sacred ” and “ profane ” manifesta- 
tions of Animism, or Spiritology, as it is called by Guiteau, the 
latest pretender to “ Divine Inspiration,” with quite ordinary 
symptoms of disordered cerebration, “ familiar as household 
words ” to every clinical tyro, especially in the department of 
alienistic medicine. I need hardly add that this vital and phy- 
sical thesis quite excludes all trustworthy knowledge as to any 
power of an animistic kind “ behind ” or “ above ” Nature or 
Brain, the officina — or, indeed, artifex — of Nature leaving us in 
the state of quite satisfactory Agnosticism, “ Ne sutor ultra 
crepidam .” The very keystone of Hylo-Phenomenalism is the 
impossibility of affirmation or negation, as regards any “ pheno- 
mena,” outside the subjective universe of Self — our only “ Final 
Cause.” The whole universe of things and thought is, indeed, 
on this view, only an Auto-morphosis, — each Ego being to itself, 
as Protogoras postulated, the measure and standard of all existing 
things, of all thought, and of all objects of thought whatsoever, 
and aCtual altruism being but a dream. The animistic or spi- 
ritual heresy is thus relegated into the limbo of Mysticism, 
defined in the last (eighth) edition of the “ Encyclopedia Brit.” 
* Mr. Ward’s precise words, in his letter entitled “ Professor Ball’s Glimpses 
through the Corridors of Time,” are — “The Professor obviously believes that 
Gravitation is an absolute Force in Nature, and not, as Newton taught, a 
purely abstract ” [ i . e ., ideal or hylo-phenomenal] “ conception of the laws or 
principles of motion.” I may mention that Professor Tyndall takes the same 
absolutely real view as Mr. Ward imputes to the distinguished Astronomer 
Royal of Ireland, and rejects the theory of Hylo Phenomenalism, or nineteenth 
century Nominalism (see M. Littre’s Didtionnaire), as a quite visionary schwindel 
and wild mental aberration, unworthy of scientific notice. 
