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or caloric just as darkness is a negation, being the absence of 
light. Well then, if you adopt this theory of cold, notwithstand- 
ing the impenetrable solidity it imparts to water and other sub- 
stances, you cannot for a moment entertain the notion that cold 
—a mere “ negation,” a nothing !— has any claim to be regarded 
as the substantial matter of the universe ! Or shall we say that 
matter is colour , or, if I may so speak, the visibility of things ? 
If so, do we conclude there is more matter in the dewdrop when 
it sparkles gem-like in the sun, than when it lies scarce visible 
under the shade ? But if colour be abstract matter, then in 
darkness it disappears ! and the glorious light, we must conclude, 
though it seems the most immaterial and ethereal of material 
things, to be the most material and substantial of all ! Besides, 
if we regard colour as anything peculiarly material, we contra- 
dict the almost universally received opinion that it is only a 
secondary quality,— an idea of the mind that perceives it, rather 
than anything in what we see ! While, if we say that matter 
must be colourless,— what is this but to say, that it is invisible ! 
a tact, by the way, I think, we must admit, in another sense 
we really knew, before we began this search to discover it ! 
9. We shall then have to conclude, that this well-known 
and, as some would have it, universally-admitted existence, this 
essential and abstract matter, this substantial substratum of all 
things visible, is neither hard nor soft, nor hot nor cold, and 
that it is absolutely colourless or invisible ; and yet, that it 
pervades all things, and is a real existence ! It has been said, 
that solidity and extension are necessary predicates of matter ” • 
but where now is the former— the solidity ? and, as to the latter' 
is not extension a predicate more especially of “ free space ” • 
and what pray, is free space, but— nothing? What abstract 
matter, then, do you believe there is in existence, besides the 
visible, sensible forms or things which we see and touch them- 
selves ; Remember we are not denying the existence of 
material things, which we see and feel, but of some unseen 
material substratum, said to be common to them all. We are 
not denying the existence of material substances, in the mere 
ordinary sense of the word substance; but of any one eternal 
matter, or common substance, of which all visible things are 
made. We are not denying that this table is made of wood, 
t hese walls of brick and mortar, or these lights of a union of gas 
and caloric ; but we are denying that the wood, brick and mortar, 
gas and fire,— and I may add to the list of incongruities whole- 
rue oo and poison, are all made of the same common 
substance : we are denying our belief in a matter which is 
° U ; r S V a !: d tllt y fore 1 can,lot be seen ; not solid and therefore 
cannot be felt ; and neither hot nor cold ! but which, while mis- 
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