et so it
is. It may perhaps be hoped that when the first strangeness of the new
position has disappeared the conditions may be accepted with greater
readiness. At any rate, a correct apprehension of our fundamental
conceptions of the world of our external experience is indispensable. No
theory can wholly dispense with such conceptions. It is therefore
essential that, however elementary, they should be clear and not
contradictory. Philosophy has always vaguely realised and exacted as
much. The need is now imperative.

Some years ago, in an essay on Schopenhauer, the author, Mr. Saunders,
remarked, "How the matter of which my arm is composed and that state of
consciousness which I call my Will [imagine anyone calling Will a state
of consciousness!] are conjoined is a mystery beyond the reach of
Science, and the man who can solve it is the man for whom the world is
waiting."

Well, if that be so, then the world need not wait any longer. The
required explanation is offered to metaphysics by the scientific work of
the physicians who built up and consolidated the modern doctrine of
Energy. It is true that most of them have continued to postulate the
reality of material bodies. For their purpose there was no real
difficulty in doing so. What they required was a datum of configuration,
a phenomenal basis upon which their calculations could proceed and in
terms of which, as a point of origin, their statement of transmutations
was made. The persistence of material bodies is a condition precedent to
the phenomenal manifestations in which our Experience arises. Organic
existence in every form and the world in which it arises presuppose the
actuality of these. But dynamically they are merely the phenomenal
result of certain permanent forces constantly in operation. To beings,
if there be such, inhabiting the Ether there is little doubt but that a
gravitation system like that of the sun and its planets must present a
corporate rigidity and identity somewhat similar to that which cohering
masses present to our intelligence. But, in terms of reality, Energy,
potential and kinetic, containing within itself the potency which
generates the actual and sustains the constant transmutation in which
phenomena arise is the sole and only postulate.

The rise of meta-geometrical methods and other branches of scientific
speculation have led in recent years to a considerable amount of very
interesting inquiry into the nature of our fundamental g