THAT ALL MATTER IS HEAVY. 207 



be found, if any where, in the most uneducated and most uncultivated 

 minds ; as the same in all ages, nations, and stages of intellectual culture ; 

 as capable of being referred to at once, and made the basis of our reasonings, 

 without any special acuteness or effort : in all which circumstances the 

 Fundamental Ideas of which we have spoken, are opposed to Innate Ideas 

 so understood. 



I shall not, however, here prosecute this subject. I will only remark, 

 that Fundamental Ideas, as we view them, are not only not innate, in any 

 usual or useful sense, but they are not necessarily ultimate elements of our 

 knowledge. They are the results of our analysis so far as we have yet 

 prosecuted it ; but they may themselves subsequently be analysed. It may 

 hereafter appear, that what we have treated as different Fundamental Ideas 

 have, in fact, a connexion, at some point below the structure which we 

 erect upon them. For instance, we treat of the mechanical ideas of force, 

 matter, and the like, as distinct from the idea of substance. Yet the prin- 

 ciple of measuring the quantity of matter by its weight, which we have 

 deduced from mechanical ideas, is applied to determine the substances 

 which enter into the composition of bodies. The idea of substance supplies 

 the axiom, that the whole quantity of matter of a compound body is equal 

 to the sum of the quantities of matter of its elements. The mechanical 

 ideas of force and matter lead us to infer that the quantity both of the 

 whole and its parts must be measured by their weights. Substance may, 

 for some purposes, be described as that to which properties belong ; matter 

 in like manner may be described as that which resists force. The former 

 involves the Idea of permanent Being ; the latter, the Idea of Causation. 

 There may be some elevated point of view from which these ideas may 

 be seen to run together. But even if this be so, it will by no means affect 

 the validity of reasonings founded upon these notions, when duly deter- 

 mined and developed. If we once adopt a view of the nature of knowledge 

 which makes necessary truth possible at all, we need be little embarrassed 

 by finding how closely connected different necessary truths are ; and how 

 often, in exploring towards their roots, different branches appear to spring 

 from the same stem. 



W. WHEWELL. 

 Grange, 



Aug. SI, 1840. 



