258 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



independent of the consciousness of another soul ; and 

 no one supposes human souls to be self-existent. 



Consequently, being no metaphysician, I am at a loss 

 to understand the use of the original supposition of im- 

 agining what does not exist. 



If he means that there cannot be two infinite souls 

 co-existent in space and time, why not say so, and the 

 matter is settled ? 



He further adds : "Annihilate space and they fall 

 into identity or nothingness" ; but as it is impossible to 

 annihilate space even in thought, no finite mind can 

 foresee what would happen, z/" Diatter be not annihilated 

 too, of which he makes no mention. 



He thus seems to begin with what is finite, quickly 

 changes it into the infinite, and then imagines what will 

 happen, if all be swept away, apparently, very like a 

 conjurer's trick. 



Mr. Rix then describes in detail the Conservation of 

 Energy as reducible to One, and all matter equally so to 

 a possible single element ; then he fuses matter and 

 force together and so, Hi presto ! gets his " uni — " 

 omitting the " — verse ". 



In doing this he makes two strange errors : one, that 

 nitrogen is peculiar to the animal kingdom and that an 

 "atom" resembles the '^ x" of an algebraical equation 

 in being "no more a real thing than that". But x has 

 a very real value, namely, the answer to the equation ; 

 it only represents it, as long as it is unknown. 



" Either Matter or Energy," he says "is, taken by itself, 

 an abstraction and not a reality." ^ Is there nothing " con- 

 crete" in the Universe? "Motion apart from matter is, 

 in fact, unthinkable." But it is perfectly conceivable 



' P. 56. 



