THE TEST Of TRUTH 



thinkable. In reply it is enough to observe that, 

 so long as human intelligence has been human 

 intelligence, it can never have been possible to 

 frame in thought an equation between some- 

 thing and nothing : yet this is the impossibility 

 which must be surmounted before the annihila- 

 tion or the creation of a particle of matter can 

 become representable in consciousness. The 

 truth is that whoever, before the discoveries of 

 chemistry, maintained that matter is destruct- 

 ible, defended a verbal proposition which an- 

 swered to no framed or framable conception. 

 Of a piece with this is the fact that in all ages 

 men have tortured, slain, calumniated, or other- 

 wise persecuted each other in their zeal to get 

 sundry propositions established, the subject and 

 predicate of which could never be united in 

 thought. It is not so very long since Michael' 

 Servetus was burned at the stake for a heresy 

 partly based upon doubts as to the possible 

 equality or identity of three and one ; yet not 

 even Mr. Mill would maintain that it has ever 

 been possible for human intelligence to join to- 

 gether the members of the quantitative theorem 

 implied in the doctrine of the Trinity. It ap- 

 pears, therefore, that men may believe, or at 

 least maintain, what they can in nowise conceive. 

 As Mr. Spencer well says, " Refrain from ren- 

 dering your terms into ideas, and you may reach 

 any conclusion whatever. That the whole is 



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