UNXIKEXESS IN OKGASTISMS. 151 



ings where he uses this language. If anybody will 

 open the American edition of Mill's " Examination 

 of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," at the eigh- 

 ty-eighth page of the first volume, he will read, 

 " That the same thing should at once be and not 

 be, — that identically the same statement should 

 be both true and false, — is not only inconceivable 

 to us, but we cannot conceive that it could be made 

 conceivable. We cannot attach sufficient meaning 

 to the proposition, to be able to represent to our- 

 selves the supposition of a different experience on 

 this matter. We cannot therefore entertain the 

 question, whether the incompatibility is in the origi- 

 nal structure of our minds, or is only put there by 

 our experience. The case is otherwise in all the 

 other examples of inconceivability. Our incapacity 

 of conceiving the same thing as A and not A, may 

 be primordial ; but our inability to conceive A with- 

 out B is because A, by experience or teaching, has 

 become inseparably associated with some mental 

 representation which includes the negation of C. 

 Thus all inconceivabilities may be reduced to insep- 

 arable association, combined with original inconceiva- 

 bility of a direct contradiction." (See also pp. 96, 

 111, 112; and Mel's Logic, book i. chap. vii. sect. 

 7.) Mill, in his later career, never would put his foot 

 over this place where the ice of the St. Lawrence 

 was so thin. But we have men in Boston who go in 

 there for a bath. (Laughter.) 



How shall we account for the unlikenesses of dif- 

 ferent organisms ? 



