152 MATTER, ENERGY, CONSCIOUSNESS, SPIRIT 



change, science seeks the fundamental and abiding- 

 realities, and the test it applies is the test of 

 "conservation." Whatever is conserved unchanged 

 during all possible changes is regarded as real. 

 We speak of the conservation of matter, because 

 though, to casual observation, matter is anything 

 but conserved, for example, fuel is " consumed " 

 by fire, and the acorn grows into the oak, yet the 

 appearances are false, and the total amount of 

 matter remains constant in these as in all other 

 changes. 



Nor is it necessary that what is conserved should 

 be material and tangible. We speak of the con- 

 servation of energy, meaning that in the variegated 

 interplay of matter, motion and force, whatever 

 happens, however complicated the mechanism or 

 however violent and catastrophic the events, some- 

 thing is unchanged and remains the same before 

 and after, and that something is termed energy. It 

 is a complex conception capable of being illustrated 

 in simple cases by reference to actual phenomena, but 

 to be accurately defined needs to be expressed as a 

 mathematical relation between the matter, forces 

 and motions involved. But nothing, not even 

 money, has a more real existence. 



In modern science, matter and energy are the 

 unchangeable realities that can neither be created 

 nor destroyed. If they appear they must come from 

 somewhere, and if they disappear they must go some- 

 where. So whatever extraordinary events may occur, 

 behind the changing appearances there is a definite 

 basis of unalterable reality in the physical world. 



The doctrine of the immortality of the spirit or 

 conservation of personality may be regarded as the 

 inverse form of the scientific argument above. The 

 real part of a man is not his bodily organism, which 

 is continually wasting away and being as continually 



