320 REASONING. 



lead us to regard the views we reject as not only false, 

 but inconceivable*." 



This last proposition is precisely what I contend 

 for ; and I ask no more, in order to overthrow the 

 whole theory of Mr. Whewell on the nature of the 

 evidence of axioms. For what is that theory? That 

 the truth of axioms cannot have been learnt from 

 experience, because their falsity is inconceivable. But 

 Mr. Whewell himself says, that we are continually led 

 by the natural progress of thought, to regard as 

 inconceivable what our forefathers not only conceived 

 but believed, nay, even (he might have added) were 

 unable to conceive the contrary of. Mr. Whewell can- 

 not intend to justify this mode of thought; he cannot 

 mean to say, that we can be right in regarding as 

 inconceivable what others have conceived, and as 

 self-evident what to others did not appear evident at 

 all. After so complete an admission that inconceiva- 

 bleness is an accidental thing, not inherent in the 

 phenomenon itself, but dependent on the mental 

 history of the person who tries to conceive it, how 

 can he ever call upon us to reject a proposition 

 as impossible on no other ground than its incon- 

 ceivableness? Yet he not only does so, but has unin- 

 tentionally afforded some of the most remarkable 

 examples which can be cited of the very illusion 

 which he has himself so clearly pointed out. We 

 select as specimens, his remarks on the evidence 

 of the three laws of motion, and of the atomic 

 theory. 



With respect to the laws of motion, Mr. Whewell 

 says: "No one can doubt that, in historical fact, these 

 laws were collected from experience. That such is 



* Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii., p. 174. 



