STALLO'S " CONCEPTS OF MODERN PHYSICS:' 231 



If we study a piece of matter, say sodium, we find it in possession of certain 

 projjerties or attributes by virtue of its relations. It has weight, color, afifinity, 

 ductility, malleability, inertia, motion, size, etc. Take it away from the earth and 

 the farther we go the less its weight becomes. Put it in the dark and it has no 

 color. Keep it from oxygen and such other substances as it unites with chemi- 

 cally and it has no afifinity. Vaporize it and it has no ductility nor malleability. 

 Its size is great or small as it is expanded into steam or contracted to a solid. 

 O r judgment of its motion depends upon a relatively stationary standard from 

 which to compare it. As we now view it scientifically the conditions which give 

 it weight, color, afifinity, etc , are conditions of motion. Remove one by one 

 the conditions which give bodies their properties and what is left when every con- 

 dition has been removed? We perceive no substance ^^r i-^. All manifestations 

 are those of inertia and motion. These are themselves but conditions or relations. 

 The corpuscular theorists, we are told, upon this final analysis, choose mass or 

 inertia, and the dynamical theorists motion or force. 



Our author says that bodies come to naught when thus treated. He sees re- 

 lations only. But relations of what ? Here is a house. It has windows, doors, 

 floors, walls, roof, stairs, rooms, etc. All these together forma house. We can- 

 not conceive of any less than walls and ground floor as a house. Suppose two 

 men should contend with each other as to which of these two final terms was 

 really the house. Let a third come in and show them that walls could not stand 

 on nothing for a support and that bare ground was not a house, then we would 

 have a fair illustration of the question. Matter is the house. Inertia is the 

 ground floor. Motion is the walls. A certain set of relations form a house. 

 Relations of what? Matter, of course ! Not relations of the last two conditions 

 constituting a house either together as Stallo has it nor apart as those he wars 

 with have it. It is not motion and inertia, motion alone, nor inertia alone. 

 At present it is useless to give it a name other than the unknown. To call it by 

 any term of either matter or motion is as senseless as to call matter in our house 

 relations by the name ground, wall, floor or any other term denoting part of a 

 house. 



Our order of symbols fail to describe the real whose relations form matter. 

 Faraday perceives that the real is not motion, hence he speaks of it as force, 

 talks of lines of force and makes a quasi-xa^XtrvdX of it. The antagonistic school 

 speaks of ^^it as inert mass and not mere inertia. Both sides look beyond the at- 

 tribute to a something, they know not what. They mean the same but do not 

 know it, because their points of view differ materially. This common something 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer calls the unknowable. Nature presents itself to us in all 

 its dimensions only by viewing it from opposite sides. I cannot see all of a chair 

 or table, tree or house, even externally, but by viewing from diametrically oppo- 

 site points. Inertia and motion are the vanishing points of all objectivity. To 

 objective sense here end our symbols. Physical science must stick to inertia 

 and motion because it can go no deeper. Ontology may guess at the unknown 

 beyond but without hope of ever reaching it. Psychology is the only hope and 



