To deny the existence of anything that does not appeal directly to our senses is absurd, because we should have to deny all the forces of nature. The existence of these can only be detected by their effects. The more science teaches us about forces, the more the view gains adherence that the forces are not a state of matter, but a thing apart, if matter is not a state of force. Even if this view should prove to be correct, the error it would dispel, that force is a state of matter, would be pardonable, as force only has come within the perception of our senses through its effect on matter. Psychology has to some extent succeeded in tracing and in describing certain forces which are at work in our nerves and our brains, such as, for example, reveal themselves in the reception and elaboration of presentations. But within every human being there are well-known phenomena which tell of forces—or of one general force—which so far have escaped all investigation. These phenomena are emotion, judgment, will. Attentive readers of Nordau’s books will have noticed that, in his scientific dissertations on the actions of the brain, these factors—emotion, judgment, will—turn up suddenly without the slightest explanation as to whence they come and what they are, though they seem to completely determine the action of the whole organism. It is with this enormous gap in their chain of reasoning that some scientists, with more learning than logic, jump to the conclusion that the thinking and feeling _Ego_ is only a state of matter. Nordau, being anxious, as we have already mentioned, to magnify the importance of his psychological theories by undermining his readers’ belief in the existence of anything unscientifically called “soul” or “spirit,” renders his task easier by attacking religion, of which the belief in the existence of the spiritual _Ego_ is a vital part. He knows that if he can compass the rejection of the idea of religion he kills two birds with one stone. He gets rid of the personal _Ego_ as well as the belief in eternal life, both of which, if admitted to be realities, would strongly point to an intelligent Providence the existence of which would be a colossal impediment to the glorification of science and of scientists.