302 REASONING. 



always means an idea, and never a belief. The wrong meaning 

 of "inconceivable" is, however, fully as frequent in philosophical 

 discussion as the right meaning, and the intuitive school of 

 metaphysicians could not well do without either. To illustrate 

 the difference, we will take two contrasted examples. The early 

 physical speculators considered antipodes incredible, because 

 inconceivable. But antipodes were not inconceivable in the 

 primitive sense of the word. An idea of them could be formed 

 without difficulty : they could be completely pictured to the 

 mental eye. What was difficult, and as it then seemed, impos- 

 sible, was to apprehend them as believable. The idea could be 

 put together, of men sticking on by their feet to the under side 

 of the earth ; but the belief would follow, that they must fall off. 

 Antipodes were not unimaginable, but they were unbelievable. 



On the other hand, when I endeavour to conceive an end 

 to extension, the two ideas refuse to come together. When I 

 attempt to form a conception of the last point of space, I can- 

 not help figuring to myself a vast space beyond that last point. 

 The combination is, under the conditions of our experience, 

 unimaginable. This double meaning of inconceivable it is 

 very important to bear in mind, for the argument from incon- 

 ceivableness almost always turns on the alternate substitution 

 of each of those meanings for the other. 



In which of these two senses does Mr. Spencer employ the 

 term, when he makes it a test of the truth of a proposition 

 that its negation is inconceivable ? Until Mr. Spencer ex- 

 pressly stated the contrary, I inferred from the course of his 

 argument, that he meant unbelievable. He has, however, in 

 a paper published in the fifth number of the Fortnightly 

 Review, disclaimed this meaning, and declared that by an in- 

 conceivable proposition he means, now and always, " one of 

 which the terms cannot, by any effort, be brought before con- 

 sciousness in that relation which the proposition asserts 

 between them a proposition of which the subject and predi- 

 cate offer an insurmountable resistance to union in thought." 

 We now, therefore, know positively that Mr. Spencer always 

 endeavours to use the word inconceivable in this, its proper, 

 sense : but it may yet be questioned whether his endeavour is 



