The Persistence of Force. 97 



elude, then, that the predication of persistence in 

 identity is not valid. 



We may take the predication in another sense ; it 

 may mean, Force continues to be force : force persists 

 as force and not under any other form. It is, then, 

 predication of continuity in sameness of kind. But 

 is the persistence of force as force a truth ascertain- 

 able in any possible manner ? When force is con- 

 ceived as existing in the unknowable we are, on 

 evolutionist principles, forbidden to affirm of it in 

 any mode. No definite conception is possible. Force, 

 as known, stands related to our senses. Out of 

 relation to nerve-sensibility it is assumed to be out of 

 relation to intelligence. The continuance of force (if 

 it continue) in the incomprehensible in unthinkable 

 modes can, give no validity to an axiom lying at the 

 base of a theory of the knowable cosmos a cosmos 

 knowable only through the senses. That force con- 

 tinues to be for ever force and nothing else is not a 

 self-evident proposition. Consciousness has no know- 

 ledge on the point, and can give no testimony. In 

 what form force existed prior to the coming to be of 

 that universe of which the senses give us means of 

 knowledge, is a problem insoluble by man. Mr. 

 Spencer himself acknowledges it to be so, when he 

 carries force back from the relations of sense and 

 thought into the unknowable actuality. "Force as 

 we know it" he says, "can be regarded only as a 



certain conditioned effect* of the Unconditioned Cause 



G 



