COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



find ourselves compelled to conceive motion as 

 continuous, we find that what " defies suppres- 

 sion in thought is really the force which the 

 motion indicates. The unceasing change of 

 position, considered by itself, may be mentally 

 abolished without difficulty. We can readily 

 imagine retardation and stoppage to result from 

 the action of external bodies. But to imagine 

 this is not possible without an abstraction of 

 the force implied by the motion. We are obliged 

 to conceive this force as impressed in the shape of 

 reaction on the bodies that cause the arrest." 1 



Or to put the whole case briefly in another 

 form : The fundamental elements of our con- 

 ception of matter are its force-element and its 

 space-element, namely, resistance and extension. 

 The fundamental elements of our conception 

 of motion are its force-element and its space- 

 and-time-element, namely, energy and velocity. 

 That in each case the force-element is primor- 

 dial is shown by the facts that what we cannot 

 conceive as diminished by the compression of 

 matter is not its extension but its power of re- 

 sistance ; what we cannot conceive as diminished 

 by the retardation of motion is not its velocity 

 but its energy. 



Therefore, in asserting that matter is inde- 

 structible and that motion is continuous, we 

 assert, by implication, that fo^ce is persistent. 



1 [First Principles, § 59.] 

 142 



