1 6 Life and Matter [chap.h. 



this fundamental cosmic law establishes the eternal 

 persistence of matter and force, their unvarying 

 constancy throughout the entire universe, it has 

 become the pole-star that guides our monistic 

 philosophy through the mighty labyrinth to a 

 solution of the world-problem " (p. 2). 



"The uneducated member of a civilised com- 

 munity is surrounded with countless enigmas at 

 every step, just as truly as the savage. Their 

 number, however, decreases with every stride of 

 civilisation and of science ; and the monistic 

 philosophy is ultimately confronted with but one 

 simple and comprehensive enigma the c problem 

 of substance ' " (p. 6). 



" The supreme and all-pervading law of nature, 

 the true and only cosmological law, is, in my 

 opinion, the law of substance ; its discovery and 

 establishment is the greatest intellectual triumph 

 of the nineteenth century, in the sense that all 

 other known laws of nature are subordinate to it. 

 Under the name of c law of substance ' we embrace 

 two supreme laws of different origin and age the 

 older is the chemical law of the c conservation of 

 matter,* and the younger is the physical law of 

 the c conservation of energy.' It will be self- 

 evident to many readers, and it is acknowledged by 

 most of the scientific men of the day, that these 

 two great laws are essentially inseparable" (p. 75). 



"The conviction that these two great cosmic 

 theorems, the chemical law of the persistence of 

 matter and the physical law of the persistence of 

 force, are fundamentally one, is of the utmost 



