178 THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER* 



combinations formed by various substances, but also the. 

 proportions in which they combine, chemists were enabled 

 to account for the matter that had made its appearance or 

 become invisible, scepticism was dissipated. And of the 

 general conclusion thus reached, the exact analyses daily 

 made, in which the same portion of matter is pursued 

 through numerous disguises and finally separated, furnish 

 never-ceasing confirmations. 



Such has become the effect of this specific evidence, 

 joined to that general evidence which the continued exist- 

 ence of familiar objects unceasingly gives us, that the Inde- 

 structibility of Matter is now held by many to be a truth 

 of which the negation is inconceivable. 



53. This last fact naturally raises the question, 

 whether we have any higher warrant for this fundamental 

 belief than the warrant of conscious induction. Before 

 showing that we have a higher warrant, some explanations 

 are needful. 



The consciousness of logical necessity, is the conscious- 

 ness that a certain conclusion is implicitly contained in cer- 

 tain premises explicitly stated. If, contrasting a young 

 child and an adult, we see that this consciousness of logical 

 necessity, absent from the one is present in the other, we 

 are taught that there is a growing up to the recognition of 

 certain necessary truths, merely by the unfolding of the 

 inherited intellectual forms and faculties. 



To state the case more specifically: Before a truth 

 can be known as necessary, two conditions must be fulfilled. 

 There must be a mental structure capable of grasping the 

 terms of the proposition and the relation alleged between 

 them; and there must be such definite and deliberate men- 

 tal representation of these terms, as makes possible a clear 

 consciousness of this relation. Non-fulfilment of either 

 condition may cause non-recognition of the necessity of the 

 truth. Let us take cases. 



