COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



grounds for believing that two straight lines 

 cannot enclose a space, we can only reply that 

 the counter-proposition is inconceivable ; that 

 we cannot frame the conception of two straight 

 lines enclosing a space ; that in any attempt to 

 do so, the conception of straight lines disap- 

 pears and is replaced by the conception of bent 

 lines. We believe the axiom simply because we 

 must believe it. 



It is only in this latter sense that the word 

 belief is employed in the canon of truth above 

 stated, and when Mr. Spencer says that a given 

 proposition is inconceivable, he means that it 

 is one of which the subject and predicate can 

 by no amount of effort be united in conscious- 

 ness. Thus (to take Mr. Spencer's illustration), 

 that a cannon-ball fired from England will reach 

 America is a proposition which, though utterly 

 incredible, is not inconceivable, — since it is 

 quite possible to imagine the projectile power 

 of cannon increased four-hundredfold, or one- 

 thousandfold, were the requisite conditions at 

 hand ; but that a certain triangle is round is an 

 inconceivable proposition, for the conceptions 

 of roundness and triangularity will destroy each 

 other sooner than be united in consciousness. 

 And manifestly we can have no deeper warrant 

 for the truth of a proposition than that the 

 counter-proposition is one which the mind is in- 

 competent to frame. Such a state of things im- 

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