CHAP. II.] FIRST TRUTHS. 41 



&quot; manifest that our experience of force is that out of which 

 the idea of matter is built. Matter as opposing our mus 

 cular 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 cor 

 relations, form the whole content of our idea of matter.&quot; 

 But it is undeniably true that very many persons who con 

 ceive a pure spirit to be unextended and not to occupy space, 

 yet at the same time find no difficulty in very distinctly 

 converting in thought that which to Mr. Spencer is incon 

 ceivable. That this is so a multitude of believers in spiritism 

 will attest, and their evidence to the fact of &quot; conceivability &quot; 

 is equally valuable, whether they are or are not deceived as 

 to facts. 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 our perception of necessary truth is not limited 

 by experience may be shown by the fact that we are O urpercep- 

 not compelled to conceive that of which we have, garyfrmhs 8 &quot; 

 and our ancestors, however remote, have ever had, byVx^r^ 

 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 believe in the possibility of other senses, but conceive 

 the existence of a sense directly revealing to us the actinic 

 properties of light, or the chemical composition of crystals, 



* See Professor Clifford s article in Macmillan s Magazine of Oct. 1872, 

 p. 511. 



