534 INTELLECTUAL SYMBOLISM. 
sands of miles before it reaches its destination. The earth falls towards the sun in conse- 
quence of the attractive force that acts upon the earth “where it is.” The belief is 
almost universal that the force is transmitted from the sun to the earth in some unknown 
way. 
269. There are many reasons for supposing that all the imponderable agents, light, 
heat, electricity, attraction, are different modifications of ForcE, all acting in similar ways 
and subject to similar laws, but differing in their effects on account of the different cir- 
cumstances attending their action. There are no greater difficulties connected with New- 
ton’s hypothesis of a subtle ether through which gravitation may be transmitted, than with 
the hypothesis of a similar ether to sustain the undulatory theory of light. The general 
reception of the undulatory theory proves that every “educated person in Europe” and 
elsewhere still feels the necessity of endeavoring to account for all transmission of force, 
and still believes that “‘a thing cannot act where it is not” in the sense in which Newton 
probably believed the maxim, though it is doubtful whether any one ever believed it in 
the sense that Mill disputes. 
270. In like manner the remaining propositions about matter, space, and creation can, 
undoubtedly, be so defined that their @ priori self-evidence may be doubted or even de- 
nied. But, in what I regard as the common acceptation of the terms, I cannot but think 
that I have a right positively to assert “that matter cannot think; that space, or exten- 
sion, is infinite; that nothing can be made out of nothing.” Of these several assertions, 
the last seems the most questionable, but in order that anything may be made, there must 
at least be a maker who has the power of making. The power of doing anything im- 
plies the exertion of force, and whatever is produced by the maker, exerting the force 
that is in his power, cannot, in every possible sense, be said to be “made out of nothing.” 
271. If the instances that have been adduced by profound students of philosophy to 
prove that reason is sometimes entangled in an inexplicable dilemma, are divested of diffi- 
culty when all the terms are used with a clear and intelligible meaning, there can be little 
risk in repeating the assertion that there can be no legitimate antagonisms of Reason 
either real or apparent. Whenever any line of argument appears to lead to a paradox, it 
may safely be inferred that Reason has either left her own province or that she has be- 
come confused by some hidden equivocation. Every honest critic, therefore, should make 
due allowance for the imperfections of language and the consequent danger of misappre- 
hension, and if he can discover in the propositions that he is considering any truthful 
meaning, he should regard that meaning as the one that the author intended to convey. 
