64 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [*r, j, 



existence of its own states being final, and admitting of no 

 appeal. You cannot conceive it to l>e otherwise. During 

 the presence of the sensation of redness it is impossible for 

 any opposite state of consciousness, such as the sensation of 

 blueness, to emerge. With regard to the cause of the sensa- 

 tion, the case is wholly different. The sensation of redness 

 may be due to the presence of an external object from which 

 emitted red rays impinge upon the retina ; or it may be due 

 to the presence of certain foreign substances in your blood 

 which excite in the optic nerve such a rate of undulation as 

 to produce the consciousness of red colour. All this is matter 

 of inference, and must be verified by the repeated application 

 of the test of truth. But for the ultimate dictum — that the 

 given state of consciousness exists — you have the direct 

 warrant of consciousness itself. 



In the light of this explanation, does not our canon of 

 inconceivability seem almost a truism, and does it not seem 

 a singular ignoratio elenchi when Mr. Mill urges against us 

 that the ancients could not conceive the existence of the 

 antipodes, which nevertheless exist ? It is quite true that the 

 ancients could not believe that men could stand on the other 

 side of the earth without falling off ; and this was because 

 they falsified one of the conditions of the complex case. 

 They imagined gravity continually acting downwards, not 

 knowing that downwards means toward the centre of the 

 earth. What they could not conceive was that an unsupported 

 body will not fall ; and this is still strictly inconceivable, 

 since to assert that an unsupported body will not fall is to 

 assert that a given amount of gravitative force, when not 

 counteracted by an equivalent opposing force, will not mani- 

 fest itself in motion, — a verbal assertion which can by no 

 effort be construed into thought. 



A similar reply awaits Mr. Mill's argument from the old 

 belief in the destructibility of matter. It is now incon- 

 ceivable that a particle of matter should either come rato 



