COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



and does it not seem a singular ignoratio elenchi 

 when Mr. Mill urges against us that the an- 

 cients could not conceive the existence of the 

 antipodes, which nevertheless exist ? It is quite 

 true that the ancients could not believe that 

 men could stand on the other side of the earth 

 without falling off; and this was because they 

 falsified one of the conditions of the complex 

 case. They imagined gravity continually acting 

 downwards, not knowing that downwards means 

 toward the centre of the earth. What they could 

 not conceive was that an unsupported body will 

 not fall ; and this is still strictly inconceivable, 

 since to assert that an unsupported body will 

 not fall is to assert that a given amount of gravi- 

 tative force, when not counteracted by an equiv- 

 alent opposing force, will not manifest itself in 

 motion, — a verbal assertion which can by no 

 effort be construed into thought. 



A similar reply awaits Mr. MilPs argument 

 from the old belief in the destructibility of 

 matter. It is now inconceivable that a particle 

 of matter should either come into existence or 

 lapse into non-existence. But before the use of 

 the balance in chemistry had shown experi- 

 mentally that nothing ever disappears, hypothe- 

 ses were freely propounded in which the inde- 

 structibility of matter was entirely ignored ; and 

 accordingly Mr. Mill appears to believe that 

 in former times the annihilation of matter was 



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