52 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 



thesis — but it is that the hypothesis carries in itself the proof 

 of its own inconceivableness. For if Space and Time are 

 forms of thought, they can never be thought of; since it is 

 impossible for anything to be at once the form of thought 

 and the matter of thought. That Space and Time are ob- 

 jects of consciousness, Kant emphatically asserts by saying 

 that it is impossible to suppress the consciousness of them. 

 How then, if they are objects of consciousness, can they at 

 the same time be conditions of consciousness ? If Space and 

 Time are the conditions under -which we think, then when 

 we think of Space and Time themselves, our thoughts must 

 be unconditioned; and if there can thus be unconditioned 

 thoughts, what becomes of the theory ? 



It results therefore that Space and Time are wholly in- 

 comprehensible. The immediate knowledge which we 

 seem to have of them, proves, when examined, to be total 

 ignorance. While our belief in their objective reality is in- 

 surmountable, we are unable to give any rational account 

 of it. And to posit the alternative belief (possible to state 

 but impossible to realize) is merely to multiply irration- 

 alities. 



§ 16. Were it not for the necessities of the argument, it 

 would be inexcusable to occupy the reader's attention with 

 the threadbare, and yet unended, controversy respecting the 

 divisibility of matter. Matter is either infinitely divisible 

 or it is not: no third possibility can be named. Which of 

 the alternatives shall we accept? If we say that Matter is 

 infinitely divisible, we commit ourselves to a supposition not 

 realizable in thought. We can bisect and re-bisect a body, 

 and continually repeating the act until we reduce its parts to 

 a size no longer physically divisible, may then mentally con- 

 tinue the process without limit. To do this, however, is 

 not really to conceive the infinite divisibility of matter, but 

 to form a symbolic conception incapable of expansion into 

 a real one, and not admitting of other verification. Really 



