As implied at the outset, my intention is not to discuss Professor Ward’s own philosophy--the less so because I discussed a like philosophy nearly a generation ago. His position is that “Once materialism is abandoned and dualism found untenable, a spiritualistic monism remains the one stable position. It is only in terms of mind that we can understand the unity, activity, and regularity that nature presents. In so understanding we see that Nature is Spirit.” (_Preface._) This was the position of Dr. Martineau in 1872 (and probably is now). He argued, that to account for this infinitude of physical changes everywhere going on, “Mind must be conceived as there,” “under the guise of simple Dynamics.” My criticisms on this view, given in an essay entitled “Mr. Martineau on Evolution,” can not here be repeated. But I held then, as I hold now, that “the Ultimate Power is no more representable in terms of human consciousness than human consciousness is representable in terms of a plant’s functions.” Briefly the result is, that in saying “Nature is Spirit” (capital N and capital S!), Professor Ward implies that he knows all about it; while I, on the other hand, am sure that I know nothing about it. * * * * * And now, passing to my essential purpose, let me exemplify Professor Ward’s controversial method. Specifying an hypothesis of the late Dr. Croll (who, he thinks, had “incomparably more right to an opinion on the question” than I have), he says, that it “at least recognizes a problem with which Mr. Spencer scarcely attempts to deal--I mean the evolution of the chemical elements. It thus suffices to convict Mr. Spencer’s work of a certain incompleteness” (i., 190). Apparently the words “scarcely attempts” refer to a passage in the above-named essay, “Mr. Martineau on Evolution,” where several reasons are given for thinking that the “so-called elements arise by compounding and recompounding.” More than this has been done, however. The evolution of the elements, if not systematically dealt with within the limits of the Synthetic Philosophy, has not been ignored. In an essay on “The Nebular Hypothesis” (_Essays_, i., pp. 156-9), it is argued, that “the general law of evolution, if it does not actually involve the conclusion that the so-called elements are compounds, yet affords _a priori_ ground for suspecting that they are such”; and five groups of traits are enumerated which support the belief that they originated by a process of evolution like that everywhere going on. But the point I here chiefly emphasize is that, having reflected upon me for omitting two volumes, Professor Ward again reflects upon me for having omitted something which one of these volumes would have contained. “Sir, you have neglected to build that house which was wanted! Moreover, you have not supplied the stairs!” * * * * *