COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



existed under a given form, should next assume 

 no form ; or should cease to be consciousness. 

 And thus our inability to conceive matter and 

 motion destroyed is our inability to suppress 

 consciousness itself. What is thus proved true 

 of matter and motion is a fortiori true of the 

 force out of which our conceptions of matter 

 and motion are built." Thus we see it is the 

 persistence of consciousness itself which imposes 

 on us the necessity of asserting the persistence 

 of force. And accordingly this primordial axiom 

 being involved in every act of conscious think- 

 ing, and being the basis of experience, " must 

 be the basis of any scientific organization of ex- 

 periences. To this an ultimate analysis brings 

 us down ; and on this a rational synthesis must 

 build up." 



The force of these considerations will become 

 still more strikingly apparent as we proceed to 

 contemplate the most general corollaries of this 

 fundamental axiom with which the science of 

 physics has furnished us. The first of these 

 corollaries is the theorem that the relations 

 among forces are persistent. That is to say, in 

 all cases an aggregate of like causes will be fol- 

 lowed by an aggregate of like effects. " If in 

 any two cases there is exact likeness not only 

 between those most conspicuous antecedents 

 which we distinguish as the causes, but also be- 

 tween those accompanying antecedents which 

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