CORRESPONDENCE, 1856-66. 315 



know ; but for an actual objective truth, oh my ! And we 1862. 

 call them blind atoms ! Why, the fellows see faster and farther 

 than we do, by the above to 1, at least. 



If a malevolent being could create one single atom more than 

 is in the plan, he would of course bring the whole thing to smash 

 at last. Query, in what time ? 



I hope we shall know more about it next world. We can't 

 know much less than we do now, that's one comfort. 



Yours very truly, 



A. DE MORGAN. 



To the Rev. Dr. WhewelL 



91 Adelaide Road, April 1, 1863. 



MY DEAR SIR, I am not going to take the privilege of the 1863. 

 day, but it reminds me, though it is not the occasion of my 

 writing, that this very day ten years I made a sort of specula- 

 tion which I thought many would attribute to the influence of 

 the day. While I was chuckling at the idea of having quite suc- 

 ceeded in a new metaphysical insanity, and before the pen was out 

 of my hand, there actually came in from a bookseller Heywood's 

 Analysis of Kant, 1844, and there I found the very same notion. 

 It occurred in a description of the * paralogisms of reason,' as 

 they occurred in the first edition. You can tell me whether 

 there is any allusion to the subject in the later editions, and this 

 is my question. 



I was considering a syllogism in which a term is a class of 

 which the individuals are the subject at different moments of its 

 existence. For instance, 



No black ball is ever a billiard ball; this ball has always 

 been black ; this ball has never been a billiard ball. 



The individuals of the class are the balls which we call one 

 ball at different times. Thereupon it struck me to think, how 

 is it that we call this ball the same ball all the time ? Whereas, 

 if we had a number of fac-simile balls in different places, we 

 should not say it is the same ball all the space. I suppose w e 

 borrow a notion from our personal identity, in which we feel 

 sameness. Consequently, if our presence had m ultipresence, if 

 the ego knew himself for himself in all the different parts of a 

 space without being able to say, I am one person here aud 

 another there any more than he can say, I am one person now 



