AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 25 



is or is not necessarily involved in existence. It simply 

 affirms existence as changelessly one with itself. 



Nevertheless, this is but vaguely intimated in the law 

 of identity, which thus proves to be sufficiently ambigu- 

 ous. And yet, as already shown, the formula may be fairly 

 interpreted as meaning that whatever is cannot cease to 

 be, and still more, that whatever is cannot, at the same 

 time, not be. 



Thus the first law of thought, when unfolded into the 

 negative form, is found to involve also the second law, or 

 the law of contradiction, which, in truth, only empha- 

 sizes and aids in rendering explicit the law of identity. 

 The law of contradiction declares that " anything can- 

 not both be and not be." And this is simply an 

 advanced form of the law of consistency. 



Nor does this advanced form of the law of consistency 

 exclude the dialectic of change inhering in all things 

 finite. This is sufficiently evident even in the form 

 just quoted, and which is the form in which the law of 

 contradiction is more commonly stated. But still less 

 does this law exclude change when stated in the form 

 given it by Aristotle, namely: To Y&P " /* onapxeiv 



xal fjiij U7!:dp%iV) dduvarov rw aoroj xard TO auro. f{ It IS 



impossible that precisely the same phase of reality should 

 both begin and not begin at the same time and in the 

 same sense." * 



Thus stated, Aristotle declares the law of contradic- 

 tion to be the "most firmly established of all first princi- 

 ples." And as he makes this statement immediately 

 following the declaration that the philosopher must come 

 provided with a first principle that is "independent of 



* "Metaphysics," Lib. III. (IV.), cap. III. 



