ther trace to the initiative of Volition
of myself or other persons; others I can only recognise as integral
parts of the vast energetic system of Nature, the stimulus of which I
cannot follow further.

The reality of Matter is said to be proved by its indestructibility; but
this characteristic can easily be resolved into (1) the
indestructibility of Space and Extension which we have seen to be merely
another name for the necessity or inevitable universality of the general
laws and conditions of Energy transmutation, and (2) the
indestructibility of the Energy to the transmutations of which we
attribute the forces of Cohesion and Gravitation.

All vital activity is but a producing of changes in the stream of
transmutation. We never do, nor in the nature of things do we ever try
to, increase or diminish the quantity of the real Energy itself. We
instinctively recognise the objective source of our physical power, and
this has led some thinkers to suppose that the indestructibility of
Matter is an _a priori_ datum of thought. But such a belief is quite
unfounded. All it amounts to is a recognition that the destruction of
Matter is _beyond our power_--a necessary consequence of the fact that
we merely act upon the transmutation-process. Many a long contest
between the supporters of _a priori_ and experiential knowledge can be
set at rest by this view of the mediating functions of the energetic
organism.

The reflections which we have thus briefly noted and illustrated open a
wide field for inquiry. The scientific doctrine of Energy would seem to
be pregnant with momentous consequences for Philosophy, and it is worth
while for metaphysicians to devote to this subject the deepest and most
deliberate thought. The results cannot easily be grasped by a mere
cursory perusal of memoranda, in which we have only sketched a few
salient aspects of the doctrine. We deprecate unwarrantable assurance,
and are fully conscious of the difficulty of adequately expressing
thought on such a theme; but we have not written rashly nor without
good grounds for asking attention.

Science, it seems to us, postulates in Energy an a-logical, unextended,
real thing-in-itself in terms of which the phenomena of Physics can be
adequately and quantifiably stated. At the same time it furnishes
Philosophy with a theory of the objectively real thing-in-itself which
satisfied those necessities of thought by which we are constrained to
interpret our sense-