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that holds fluids together now. Probably “the attraction of 
cohesion ” of solids is some other force, which also Mr. 
Spencer has got to invent or account for by his universal 
solvent, the conservation of force, and the cohesion repre- 
sents the heat that is requisite to dissolve it. But no one 
could possibly divine a priori how much more heat would be 
required to dissolve iron than lead, and lead than ice. There- 
fore these are laws of nature demonstrable only by expe- 
rience, and requiring creation and maintenance, and not 
necessary truths independent of experience. 
Next for the “ definite coherent heterogeneity.*” Co- 
herence we have already seen to be merely a word of degree, 
depending upon the amount of “integration” or condensation 
that has taken place, up to date, as they say. There has 
been no such thing in nature, since gravity came in, as abso- 
lute incoherence, — though there may be a good deal of it in 
“synthetic philosophy.” Again, if homogeneity must be a 
definite something, as it plainly must, heterogeneity can be no 
more definite, and unfortunately it can be much less. For 
heterogeneous things — even solid, and fluid ones still more, and 
gaseous above all — may be so intermixed and varied in density 
that the composition may be more properly called indefinite 
than definite. Therefore it turns out that all those fine ad- 
jectives mean just nothing, except that “ definite and in- 
definite” ought to be reversed, if used at all. And, then, 
what is a “ parallel transformation of retained motion ” which 
is undissipated by integration ? I look in vain through the 
Spencerian pages for an answer. It certainly never is 
parallel to its former direction after transformation. So there 
we must leave it, and “ dissipation of motion ” too, with the 
remarks I made on it just now as a necessary companion of 
integration, whereas it may just be the contrary. 
What, then, remains of that portentous formula, the final 
and complete expression of the “Evolution of the Cosmos” 
out of self-existent matter by persistent force ? Mr. Spencer, 
in his new Appendix, rebukes some great mathematicians for 
making fun of it without any serious argument, and says that 
they have not perceived, poor ignorant creatures as they are, 
that “language of the highest abstractness is necessary” to 
express such transcendental truths. I have not done that, 
tempting as it may be. But I have shown that every im- 
portant word in it is either unmeaning or wrong, and ought 
to be reversed or combined with its opposite. 
I am not reviewing Mr. Spencer's book generally : that 
has been done at greater length in the Edinburgh Review of 
“Parallel 
Transforma- 
tion of re- 
tained Mo- 
tion.*’ 
