2S8 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pt. ti. 



involve that this substance of consciousness, having just 

 existed under a given form, should next assume no form ; or 

 should cease to be consciousness. And thus our inability in 

 conceive matter and motion destroyed, is our inability to sup- 

 press consciousness itself. What is thus proved true of matter 

 and motion is d 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 thinking, and being the basis of experience, 

 " must be the basis of any scientific organization of experi- 

 ences. 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 followed 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 between those accompanying antecedents 

 which we call the conditions, we cannot affirm that the 

 effects will differ, without affirming either that some force 

 has come into existence or that some force has ceased to 

 exist. If the cooperative forces in the one case are equal to 

 those in the other, each to each, in distribution and amount ; 

 then it is impossible to conceive the product of their joint 

 action in the one case as unlike that in the other, without 

 conceiving one or more of the forces to have increased or 

 diminished in quantity ; and this is conceiving that force is 

 not persistent." 1 It follows, therefore, from the persistence 

 1 First Principles, p. 193. 



