146 Herbert Spcjicer 



terms of force only — since that which is described must be 

 conceived; and he tells us^ it is 'manifest that our 

 experience of force is that out of which the idea of matter 

 is built. Matter, as opposing our muscular energies, being 

 immediately present to consciousness in terms of force, and 

 its occupancy of space being known by an abstract of 

 experiences originally given in terms of force, it follows 

 that forces, standing in certain correlations, form the 

 whole content of our idea of matter.' But however much 

 it is to be regretted, it is undeniably the fact that very 

 many persons who conceive a pure spirit to be unextended 

 and not to occupy space, find at the same time no difficulty 

 in very distinctly converting in thought that which to Mr. 

 Spencer is inconceivable. Again, the doctrine that the soul 

 is whole and entire in every part of the body is a conception 

 utterly transcending imagination, but one which has been 

 and is accepted, believed, and reasoned about by thousands 

 of the most acute and cultivated intellects. Some not only 

 avow their power of conceiving that space may be bounded, 

 but even announce that we may be shortly enabled to assert 

 its actual extent.^ 



But that perception of necessary truth is not Hmited by 

 experience may be shown by the fact that we are not com- 

 pelled to conceive that of which we have, and our ancestors, 

 however remote, have ever had, uniform and unvarying 

 experience. We have ever seen with our eyes and heard 

 with our ears, yet we can conceive of vision and audition 

 taking place in quite other parts of the body instead. We 

 have experience but of the five senses, apart from the 

 muscular sense, yet we can not only beheve in the possibility 

 of other senses but conceive the existence of a sense directly 



^ Firat Principles (second edition), p. 167. 



2 See Professor Clififord's article in MacmillaTfCs Magazine of Oct. 1872^ 

 p. 511. 



