96 The Evolution Hypothesis. 



false : it is clear the predication A continues to be A 

 does not hold universally. It must then be limited. 

 What is the limitation ? The answer may be given, 

 It was not the coal, but the force manifested in the 

 coal of which persistence was affirmed. We may, 

 then, write, This A (the force manifested in the coal) 

 continues to be this A (the same force manifested 

 otherwise). At this point we are far removed from 

 the primary dicta of consciousness. We have drawn 

 a distinction between force and the manifestation of 

 force, and we have affirmed the continued existence 

 of the force under varying manifestations. Force is 

 known to us only as manifested : it stands related to 

 our senses. " To conceive " force " is to represent it in 

 some terms derived from our experience that is, 

 from our sensations." * But our axiom requires that 

 we should separate the manifestation from the force,, 

 and think the force apart from the manifestation. 

 Apart from manifestation no definite conception of 

 the force is possible ; unmanifested it is a part of the 

 inscrutable actuality. To individualize this force 

 apart from its manifestations, and think it in the pre- 

 sent, to individualize it, apart from its manifestations, 

 and think it in the future, and to affirm continued 

 identity is, on Mr. Spencer's theory, unquestionably 

 illegitimate ; we cannot conceive either term in the 

 proposition they are alike unknowable. We con- 



* Psychology, vol. II., 428, note. 



