CHAPTER XI. 



RECAPITULATION, CRITICISM, AND RECOMMENCEMENT. 



89. LET us pause awhile to consider how far the con- 

 tents of the foregoing chapters go towards forming a body 

 of knowledge such as was defined at the outset as constitut- 

 ing Philosophy. 



In respect of its generality, the proposition enunciated 

 and exemplified in each chapter, is of the required kind is 

 a proposition transcending those class-limits which Science, 

 as currently understood, recognizes. " The Indestructibil- 

 ity of Matter " is a truth not belonging to mechanics more 

 than to chemistry, a truth assumed alike by molecular phys- 

 ics and the physics that deals with sensible masses, a truth 

 which the astronomer and the biologist equally take for 

 granted. Not merely do those divisions of Science which 

 deal with the movements of celestial and terrestrial bodies 

 postulate " The Continuity of Motion," but it is no less pos- 

 tulated in the physicist's investigations into the phenomena 

 of light and heat, and is tacitly, if not avowedly, implied in 

 the generalizations of the higher sciences. So, too, " The 

 Persistence of Force," involved in each of the preceding 

 propositions, is co-extensive with them, as is also its corol- 

 lary, " The Persistence of Relations among Forces." These 

 are not truths of a high generality, but they are universal 

 truths. Passing to the deductions drawn from 



them, we see the same thing. That force is transformable, 

 and that between its correlates there exist quantitative 



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