A certain amount of metaphysical discussion will be necessary; but it will be reduced to the minimum compatible with coherency. Fortunately, Nature Mysticism can be at home with diverse world-views. There is, however, one exception--the world-view which is based on the concept of an Unconditioned Absolute. This will be unhesitatingly rejected as subversive of any genuine "communion" with nature. So also Symbolism will be repudiated on the ground that it furnishes a quite inadequate account of the relation of natural phenomena to the human mind. The only metaphysical theory adopted, as a generalised working basis, is that known as Ideal-Realism. It assumes three spheres of existence--that which in a peculiar sense is _within_ the individual mind: that which in a peculiar sense is _without_ (external to) the individual mind: and that in which these two are fused or come into living contact. It will be maintained, as a thesis fundamental to Nature Mysticism, that the world of external objects must be essentially of the same essence as the perceiving minds. The bearing of these condensed statements will become plain as the phenomena of nature are passed in review. Of formal theology there will be none. The more certain conclusions of modern science, including the broader generalisations of the hypothesis of evolution, will be assumed. Lowell, in one of his sonnets, says: "I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away The charm that nature to my childhood wore For, with that insight cometh, day by day, A greater bliss than wonder was before: The real doth not clip the poet's wings; To win the secret of a weed's plain heart Reveals some clue to spiritual things, And stumbling guess becomes firm-rooted art." Admirable--as far as it goes! But the modern nature-mystic cannot rest content with the last line. The aim of nature-insight is not art, however firm-rooted; for art is, so to speak, a secondary product, a reflection. The goal of the nature-mystic is actual living communion with the Real, in and through its sensuous manifestations. Nature Mysticism, as thus conceived, does not seek to glorify itself above other modes of experience and psychic activity. The partisanship of the theological or of the transcendental type is here condemned. Nor will there be an appeal to any ecstatic faculty which can only be the vaunted appanage of the few. The appeal will lie to faculties which are shared in some degree by all normal human beings, though they are too often neglected, if not disparaged. Rightly developed, the capacity for entering into communion with nature is not only a source of the purest pleasure, but a subtle and powerful agent in aiding men to realise some of the noblest potentialities of their being.