320 LAUGEL'S PROBLEMS OF NATURE AND LIFE. 



just denoted struck the ancient philosophers as they do 

 us, and were answered with even greater audacity, 

 from the absence of those checks which inductive 

 science imposes. The terms TO irdoypv and TO TTOIOVV 

 briefly express the relation of matter and force in 

 the Greek philosophy. Cicero and Seneca both denote 

 the points in question clearly and compendiously. 

 The science of our own time, though it illustrates these 

 relations in a thousand ways unknown before though 

 it may be said to have added a new element of power 

 to those already known, and by gigantic efforts of 

 human genius to have converted all to the practical 

 uses of man yet, as regards the internal nature 

 of matter and force severally, has scarcely carried 

 our knowledge beyond that of our predecessors. 

 Motion and change show us the results of their rela- 

 tion, and with these science has its dealings, leaving 

 still open the cardinal question, What is Matter? 

 What is Force ? Some philosophers, as we have seen, 

 standing on the brink of these profound problems, 

 merge all matter in centres and lines of force ; others 

 see force only in the conditions and changes of matter 

 itself. We have half-a-dozen books and papers lying 

 before us in which this question is handled, under 

 various conceptions of the points in dispute. And 

 many others are announced as about to appear. 



In the recent multiplicity of these writings on 

 force, as an element in the natural world, we find 

 justification for thus discussing the subject. The am- 

 biguities besetting the term in its various relations 

 have been rather multiplied than lessened by conflict- 



