THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER.
§ 66. Not because the truth is unfamiliar, is it needful here to say
something concerning the indestructibility of Matter; but partly because
the symmetry of our argument demands the enunciation of this truth, and
partly because the evidence on which it is accepted requires
examination. Could it be shown, or could it with any rationality be even
supposed, that Matter, either in its aggregates or in its units, ever
became non-existent, there would be an end to the inquiry on which we
are now setting out. Evolution, considered as a re-arrangement of parts,
could not be scientifically explained, if, during its course, any of the
parts might arise out of nothing or might lapse into nothing. The
question would no longer be one comprehending only the forces and
motions by which the re-arrangement is effected; but would involve an
incalculable element, and would hence be insoluble. Clearly, therefore,
the indestructibility of Matter is an indispensable axiom.
So far from being admitted as a self-evident truth, this would, in
primitive times, have been rejected as a self-evident error. There was
once universally current, a notion that things could vanish into
absolute nothing, or arise out of absolute nothing. If we analyze early
superstitions, or that faith in magic which was general in later times
and even still survives among the uncultured, we find one of its
postulates to be, that by some potent spell Matter can be called out of
nonentity, and can be made non-existent. If men did not believe this in
the strict sense of the word (which would imply that the process of
creation or annihilation was clearly represented in consciousness), they
still believed that they believed it; and how nearly, in their confused
thoughts, the one was equivalent to the other, is shown by their
conduct. Nor, indeed, have dark ages and inferior minds alone betrayed
this belief. The current theology, in its teachings respecting the
beginning and end of the world, is clearly pervaded by it; and it may be
even questioned whether Shakespeare, in his poetical anticipation of a
time when all things should disappear and “leave not a wrack behind,”
was not under its influence. The gradual accumulation of
experiences however, and still more the organization of experiences, has
tended slowly to reverse this conviction; until now, the doctrine that
Matter is indestructible has become a common-place. Whatever may be true
of it absolutely, we have learnt that relatively to our consciousness,
Matter never either comes into existence or ceases to exist. Cases which
once gave an apparent support to the illusion that something could come
out of nothing, a wider knowledge has one by one cancelled. The comet
that is all at once discovered in the heavens and nightly waxes larger,
is proved not to be a newly-created body, but a body that was until
lately beyond the range of vision. The cloud which in the course of a
few minutes forms in the sky, consists not of substance that has just
begun to be, but of substance that previously existed in a more diffused
and transparent form. And similarly with a crystal or precipitate in
relation to the fluid depositing it. Conversely, the seeming
annihilations of Matter turn out, on closer observation, to be only
changes of state. It is found that the evaporated water, though it has
become invisible, may be brought by condensation to its original shape.
The discharged fowling-piece gives evidence that though the gunpowder
has disappeared, there have appeared in place of it certain gases,
which, in assuming a larger volume, have caused the explosion.
Not, however, until the rise of quantitative chemistry, could the
conclusion suggested by such experiences be reduced to a certainty.
When, having ascertained not only the combinations into which various
substances enter, but also the proportions in which they combine,
chemists were enabled to account for the matter that had made its
appearance or become invisible, the proof was rendered complete. When,
in place of the candle that had slowly burnt away, it was shown that
certain calculable quantities of carbonic acid and water had
resulted—when it was demonstrated that the joint weight of the carbonic
acid and water thus produced, was equal to the weight of the candle plus
that of the oxygen uniting with its constituents during combustion; it
was put beyond doubt that the carbon and hydrogen forming the candle,
were still in existence, and had simply changed their state. And of the
general conclusion thus exemplified, the exact analyses daily made, in
which the same portion of matter is pursued through numerous
transformations and finally separated, furnish never-ceasing
confirmations.
Such has become the effect of this specific evidence, joined to that
general evidence which the continued existence of familiar objects
unceasingly gives us; that the indestructibility of Matter is now
recognized by many as a truth of which the negation is inconceivable.
Habitual experiences being no longer met by any counter-experiences, as
they once seemed to be; but these apparent counter-experiences
furnishing new proof that Matter exists permanently, even where the
senses fail to detect it; it has grown into an axiom of science, that
whatever metamorphoses Matter undergoes, its quantity is fixed. The
chemist, the physicist, and the physiologist, not only one and all take
this for granted, but would severally profess themselves unable to
realize any supposition to the contrary.
* * * * *
§ 67. This last fact naturally raises the question, whether we have any
higher warrant for this fundamental belief, than the warrant of
conscious induction. The indestructibility of Matter is proved
experimentally to be an absolute uniformity within the range of our
experience. But absolute uniformities of experience, generate absolute
uniformities of thought. Does it not follow, then, that this ultimate
truth must be a cognition involved in our mental organization? An
affirmative answer we shall find unavoidable.
What is termed the ultimate incompressibility of Matter, is an admitted
law of thought. Though it is possible to imagine a piece of matter to be
compressed without limit, yet however small the bulk to which we
conceive it reduced, it is impossible to conceive it reduced into
nothing. While we can represent to ourselves the parts of the matter as
indefinitely approximated, and the space occupied as indefinitely
decreased, we cannot represent to ourselves the quantity of matter as
made less. To do this would imply an imagined disappearance of some of
the constituent parts—would imply that some of the constituent parts
were in thought compressed into nothing; which is no more possible than
the compression of the whole into nothing. Whence it is an obvious
corollary, that the total quantity of matter in the Universe, cannot
really be conceived as diminished, any more than it can be conceived as
increased. Our inability to conceive Matter becoming non-existent,
is immediately consequent on the very nature of thought. Thought
consists in the establishment of relations. There can be no relation
established, and therefore no thought framed, when one of the related
terms is absent from consciousness. Hence it is impossible to think of
something becoming nothing, for the same reason that it is impossible to
think of nothing becoming something—the reason, namely, that nothing
cannot become an object of consciousness. The annihilation of Matter is
unthinkable for the same reason that the creation of Matter is
unthinkable; and its indestructibility thus becomes an _à priori_
cognition of the highest order—not one that results from a long
continued registry of experiences gradually organized into an
irreversible mode of thought; but one that is given in the form of all
experiences whatever.
Doubtless it will be considered strange that a truth only in modern
times accepted as unquestionable, and then only by men of science,
should be classed as an _à priori_ truth; not only of equal certainty
with those commonly so classed, but of even higher certainty. To set
down as a proposition which cannot be thought, one which mankind once
universally professed to think, and which the great majority profess to
think even now, seems absurd. The explanation is, that in this, as in
countless other cases, men have supposed themselves to think what they
did not think. As was shown at the outset, the greater part of our
conceptions are symbolic. Many of these symbolic conceptions, though
rarely developed into real ones, admit of being so developed; and, being
directly or indirectly proved to correspond with actualities, are valid.
But along with these there pass current others which cannot be
developed—cannot by any direct or indirect process be realized in
thought; much less proved to correspond with actualities. Not being
habitually tested, however, the legitimate and illegitimate symbolic
conceptions are confounded together; and supposing themselves to have
literally thought, that which they have thought only symbolically, men
say they believe propositions of which the terms cannot even be put
together in consciousness. Hence the ready acceptance given to sundry
hypotheses respecting the origin of the Universe, which yet are
absolutely unthinkable. And as before we found the commonly asserted
doctrine that Matter was created out of nothing, to have been never
really conceived at all, but to have been conceived only symbolically;
so here we find the annihilation of Matter to have been conceived only
symbolically, and the symbolic conception mistaken for a real one.
Possibly it will be objected that the words _thought_, and
_belief_, and _conception_, are here employed in new senses; and that it
is a misuse of language to say that men did not really think that which
has nevertheless so profoundly influenced their conduct. It must be
confessed that there is an inconvenience in so restricting the meanings
of these words. There is no remedy however. Definite conclusions can be
reached, only by the use of well-defined terms. Questions touching the
validity of any portion of our knowledge, cannot be profitably discussed
unless the words _knowing_, and _thinking_, have specific
interpretations. We must not include under them whatever confused
processes of consciousness the popular speech applies them to; but only
the distinct processes of consciousness. And if this obliges us to
reject a large part of human thinking as not thinking at all, but merely
pseudo-thinking, there is no help for it.
Returning to the general question, we find the results to be:—that we
have positive experience of the continued existence of Matter; that the
form of our thought renders it impossible for us to have experience of
Matter passing into non-existence, since such experience would involve
cognition of a relation having one of its terms not representable in
consciousness; that hence the indestructibility of Matter is in
strictness an _à priori_ truth; that nevertheless, certain illusive
experiences, suggesting the notion of its annihilation, have produced in
undisciplined minds not only the supposition that Matter could be
conceived to become non-existent, but the notion that it did so; but
that careful observation, showing the supposed annihilations to have
never taken place, has confirmed, _à posteriori_, the _à priori_
cognition which Psychology shows to result from a uniformity of
experience that can never be met by counter-experience.
* * * * *
§ 68. The fact, however, which it most concerns us here to observe, is,
the nature of the perceptions by which the permanence of Matter is
perpetually illustrated to us, and from which Science draws the
inference that Matter is indestructible. These perceptions, under all
their forms, amount simply to this—that the _force_ which a given
quantity of matter exercises, remains always the same. This is the proof
on which common sense and exact science alike rely. When, for
example, somebody known to have existed a few years since is said to
exist still, by one who yesterday saw him, his assertion amounts to
this—that an object which in past time wrought on his consciousness a
certain group of changes, still exists because a like group of changes
has been again wrought on his consciousness: the continuance of the
power thus to impress him, he holds to prove the continuance of the
object. Should some auditor allege a mistake in identity, the witness is
admitted to give conclusive proof when he says that he not only saw, but
shook hands with this person, and remarked while grasping his hand, that
absence of the index finger which was his known peculiarity: the
implication being, that an object which through a special combination of
forces, produces special tactual impressions, is concluded still to
exist while it continues still to do this. Even more clearly do we see
that force is our ultimate measure of Matter, in those cases where the
shape of the matter has been changed. A piece of gold given to an
artizan to be worked into an ornament, and which when brought back
appears to be less, is placed in the scales; and if it balances a much
smaller weight than it did in its rough state, we infer that much has
been lost either in manipulation or by direct abstraction. Here the
obvious postulate is, that the quantity of Matter is finally
determinable by the quantity of gravitative force it manifests.
And this is the kind of evidence on which Science bases its
experimentally-established induction that Matter is indestructible.
Whenever a piece of substance lately visible and tangible, has been
reduced to an invisible, intangible shape, but is proved by the weight
of the gas into which it has been transformed to be still existing; the
assumption is, that though otherwise insensible to us, the amount of
matter is the same, if it still tends towards the Earth with the same
force. Similarly, every case in which the weight of an element present
in combination, is inferred from the known weight of another element
which it neutralizes, is a case in which the quantity of matter is
expressed in terms of the quantity of chemical force it exerts; and in
which this specific chemical force is assumed to be the necessary
correlative of a specific gravitative force.
Thus then by the indestructibility of Matter, we really mean the
indestructibility of the _force_ with which Matter affects us. As we
become conscious of Matter only through that resistance which it opposes
to our muscular energy, so do we become conscious of the permanence of
Matter only through the permanence of this resistance; as either
immediately or mediately proved to us. And this truth is made manifest
not only by analysis of the _à posteriori_ cognition, but equally so by
analysis of the _à priori_ one. For that which we cannot conceive to be
diminished by the continued compression of Matter, is not its occupancy
of space, but its ability to resist.