402 
Relations between 
rjuly, 
competence of those who have no acquaintance whatever 
with the faCts to determine the value or correctness of those 
conclusions.” 
I must now proceed to examine these contentions. That, 
like any utterances of Mr. A. R. Wallace, they merit a 
careful — and even a deferential — consideration it does not 
need to be urged. 
The fundamental initial difficulty which Mr. Wallace, so 
far as I can see, does not attempt to remove is this : — 
Science is based upon what we, for want of a better name, 
term law. Spiritualism rests upon will. Science — and not 
merely our present science, but any possible science, so far 
as I can conceive it — takes its stand upon the causal nexus, 
upon the regular sequence of cause and effeCt. Iron always 
sinks in mercury, and always dissolves in hydrochloric acid ; 
oils and fats, if heated to a sufficient temperature, always 
burn. No matter in what age, in what corner of the world, 
or in what climate the experiment is made the result comes 
out the same. Hence we are able to foretell phenomena. 
We know that under the same conditions the same results 
will follow. There are, of course, numbers of cases in 
which the causes and conditions of phenomena have not been 
traced out. Here prediction is impossible; but we were 
gradually going on solving these difficulties, and meantime 
the power of prevision was recognised as the great distin- 
guishing mark between Science — i.e., organised knowledge 
— and mere desultory empirical knowledge. 
Not only Science, but practical Art, all the doings of daily 
life, rest upon this same observed invariability. There is, 
in short, as we have always imagined, law and order in the 
universe. 
Now will — finite will at least — is, I submit, the very anti- 
thesis of law. Where will — arbitrium — comes in, we have 
of necessity the arbitrary. The most of us, indeed 
(“ humbugs” as we might be called for our pains by “ ad- 
vanced thinkers ”), have all along recognised one infinite 
unvarying Will as the ultimate cause of all phenomena. 
But such Will, being unchangeable and entering at all times 
equally into all phenomena, occasioned no difficulty. Nor 
has it been possible to deny that the wills of men and the 
lower animals — I do not feel certain whether it is safe to 
add “ and of plants also ” — were capable of interfering to a 
limited extent and in certain directions with the order of 
Nature. But, according to what was considered established 
in the earlier half of the present century, men and animals 
