CHA.P. II.] FIRST TRUTHS. 37 



but is so mucli at variance with experience&quot; &quot;that its terms 

 cannot be put in the alleged relation without effort ; &quot; and 

 he gives us an example a cannon-ball fired from England 

 to America. An inconceivable proposition is defined by him 

 as &quot; one of which the terms cannot, by any effort, be brought 

 before consciousness in that relation which the proposition 

 asserts between them : &quot; and he gives as examples of in 

 conceivability &quot; that one side of a triangle is equal to the 

 sum of the other two sides ; &quot; and * the idea of resistance, 

 disconnected from the idea of extension in the resisting 

 object. 



Now, in the first place, it must be presumed that with Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer the term &quot; framed in thought &quot; is equiva 

 lent to &quot; represented in imagination,&quot; and the distinction he 

 draws is as true as obvious, between propositions which can 

 be imagined but are not to be believed, and those which 

 cannot be imagined at all. He does not, however, as has been 

 said, distinguish sufficiently between propositions, as a little 

 introspection will convince any unprejudiced experimenter. 



There are, in fact, not one, but two distinct classes of un 

 imaginable propositions, and it is the second of these TWO distinct 



,. i \ i i -i classes of 



(ignored by him) which alone compels the mind to unimagin- 



. . . able proposi- 



absolute, unconditional, universal, and necessary tion3 - 

 assent to their contradictories, because their contradictories 

 are seen to be absolutely, unconditionally, universally, and 

 necessarily true. 



There are altogether four kinds of propositions in con 

 sciousness : 



1. Those which can be both imagined and believed. 



2. Those which can be imagined but cannot be believed. 



3. Those which cannot be imagined but can be believed. 



4. Those which cannot be imagined and are not believed, 

 because they are positively known to be absolutely impossible- 



We need not occupy time with a consideration of the 

 first two kinds, bat the latter two require careful discrimi- 



; Psychology, vol. ii. pp. 406, 407. 



