360 FALLACIES. 



equally easy to believe. To Newton the one, because 

 his imagination was familiar with it, appeared natural 

 and a matter of course, while the other, for the con- 

 trary reason, seemed too absurd to be credited. If a 

 Newton could err thus grossly in the use of such an 

 argument, who else can trust himself with it ? 



It is strange that any one, after such a warning, 

 should rely implicitly upon the evidence, a priori, of 

 such propositions as these, that matter cannot think ; 

 that space, or extension, is infinite ; that nothing can 

 be made out of nothing (ex nihilo nihil Jit). Whether 

 these propositions are true or no this is not the place 

 to determine, nor even whether the questions are 

 soluble by the human faculties. But such doctrines 

 are no more self-evident truths, than the ancient 

 maxim that a thing cannot act where it is not, which 

 probably is not now believed by any educated person 

 in Europe. Matter cannot think ; why? because we 

 cannot conceive thought to be annexed to any arrange- 

 ment of material particles. Space is infinite, because 

 having never known any part of it which had not 

 other parts beyond it, we cannot conceive an absolute 

 termination. Ex nihilo nihil fit, because having never 

 known any physical product without a pre-existing 

 physical material, we cannot, or think we cannot, 

 imagine a creation out of nothing. But these things 

 may in themselves be as conceivable as gravitation 

 without an intervening medium, which Newton thought 

 too great an absurdity for any man of a competent 

 faculty of philosophical thinking to admit: and even 

 supposing them not conceivable, this, for aught we 

 know, may be merely one of the limitations of our 

 very limited minds, and not in nature at all. 



Coleridge has attempted, with his usual ingenuity, 

 to establish a distinction which would save the credit 



