34 MATTER AND FORCE, IN PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 



Cicero and Seneca denote the points in question clearly 

 and compendiously. They have furnished food for 

 thought and speculation to our own age under the 

 stricter conditions of inductive philosophy. The en- 

 quiry, in truth, is pressed upon us as a necessity of our 

 reasoning faculties ; but it has become a privilege also, 

 by giving the mind access to higher laws and relations 

 than ever entered into the conceptions of ancient 

 philosophy. 



To recur to the relation of Matter and Force as the 

 great question of all, we may at once put aside the 

 enquiry whether matter be eternal or created, as one 

 unapproachable by reason. Its existence through all 

 time, or its creation at a given time, are alike incom- 

 prehensible. Equally must be put aside all that con- 

 cerns the definition of matter in the abstract, and that 

 relation of its existence to the percipient mind, which 

 has been the metaphysical wrangle of ages. When 

 Mr. Mill says that matter may be defined as ' the per- 

 manent possibility of sensation,' we see, though dimly, 

 what he means, but gain little by the definition. For 

 all purposes of reason and research we must be content 

 to deal with its forms and properties, as they reach us, 

 through the senses, and convey perceptions to our 

 consciousness. Subject matter to metaphysical pressure, 

 and it is lost to human reason. Fortunately physical 

 science has not been led astray by these vagaries of 

 philosophy. It regards matter in a real sense, as made 

 up of parts or atoms of inconceivable minuteness and 

 mobility each atom, whatever its elementary nature, 

 having its individual properties and relations to others, 



