ontention (urged in an earlier chapter) that the Pluralist
may be a genuine mystic. Interpenetration and co-operation may
supply the place of the metaphysical unity at which the
Absolutists aim. But the main point here is, that Lotze
conceives the universe as organically and spiritually related in
all its parts. It all shares in a common life.

Of a monadistic character, also, are the two closely related
views known as the Mind-Dust theory, and the Mind-Stuff
theory. The former postulates particles or atoms of mind,
distinct from material atoms, but, like them, pervading all
nature, and, under certain conditions, combining to form
conscious mind. The latter does not thus separate mind and
matter, but assumes that primordial units of mind-stuff sum
themselves together and engender higher and more complex
states of mind, and themselves constitute what appears to us as
matter. James in his larger Psychology keenly criticised this
"psychic monadism," and has in his Oxford Lectures on a
"Pluralistic Universe," substantially modified his criticism. It is
not necessary to enter into further detail, but to grasp the fact
that such modern scientists as Clifford inclined to see in the
world, at every point, a manifestation of some grade of
consciousness, and therefore of kinship. The noted French
philosopher, Renouvier, has also resuscitated the monadistic
theory in a form more closely allied to that of Leibniz.

Discussion of the merits and demerits of these various views is
not now in question, but only their value as evidence of the
trend towards a critical animism. The inadequacy of the
mechanical view came home even to a mathematician like
Clifford!

We turn to a very different form of speculation, yet one equally
favourable to the essential contention of the nature-mystic--that
of Schopenhauer, a philosopher whose system is attracting
closer and keener attention as the years pass by. Certain of his
views have been cursorily mentioned in what has preceded, and
will find further mention in what is to follow. But here, the aim
is to focus attention on his fundamental doctrine, that the
Ground of all existence is Will. His line of argument in arriving
at this conclusion is briefly to be stated thus. The nature of
things-in-themselves would remain an eternal secret to us, were
it not that we are able to approach it, not by knowledge of
external phenomena, but by inner experience. Every knowing
being is a part of nature, a