THE CONSTITUTION OF MATTER. 13 



Pascal said of certain fundamental notions of the same 

 order : " Urging investigation further and further, we 

 necessarily arrive at primitive words which cannot be de- 

 fined, or at principles so clear that we can find no others 

 which are clearer." When we have reached these prin- 

 ciples, nothing remains but to study one's self with pro- 

 foundest meditation, not striving to give an image to those 

 things whose essence is that they cannot be imagined. 

 From the most general and abstract point of view, then, 

 matter is at once form and force, that is, there is no essen- 

 tial difference between these two modes of substance. 

 Form is simply force circumscribed, condensed. Force is 

 simply form indefinite, diffused. Such is the net result of 

 the methodical inquiries of modern science, and one which 

 forces itself on our minds, apart from any svstematic pre- 

 meditation. It is of consequence to add that the merit of 

 having formulated it very clearly and noted its importance 

 belongs to French contemporary philosophers, particularly 

 to Charles Levdque and Paul Janet. 



II. 



If the web of things, the essence of matter, is one 

 single substance, who was the Orpheus under whose spell 

 these materials gathered, ranged, and diversified them- 

 selves into natures of so many kinds ? And, first of all, 

 how can the extension of bodies proceed from an assem- 

 bling of unextended principles ? The answer to this first 

 question does not seem difficult to us. Extension exists 

 prior to matter. They are two distinct things, without any 

 relation of causality or finality. Matter no more proceeds 

 from extension than extension proceeds from matter. This 

 simple remark suffices to settle the difficulty of conceiving 

 how the dimension of objects results from a group of dy- 

 namic points which have no dimension. Extension exist- 

 ing before every thing else, it is quite clear that, when 



