be affirmed or denied of a class can be affirmed or denied of every member thereof. A simple illustration of a syllogism in the first figure of the first mood is this: All men are mortal; John is a man; therefore, John is mortal. Another, to take an example from the department of science, is this: All conductors are non-electrics; liquids are conductors; therefore, liquids are non-electrics. For ages this has been one of the idols of the study. No Bushman in the wilds of Southern Africa has worshipped his fetich more reverently than schoolmen, through a thousand years, have regarded this process and the great dictum on which this process is based. Its foundation, however, is a superstition. We believe that in all correct deduction there are two premises which are true, from which must be inferred a third, which is also true; but let us notice that of those two that are true one embraces the other, so that the Port Royal logicians called the major premise the containing, and the minor the explicative premise. The real difficulty in this case lies in the fact that none but an Omniscient Being can be certain that the major or containing premise, if it be a universal affirmative or universal negative, can be true. For instance, if I assert that "all men are mortal," it is a mere assumption. I do not know all the men who are living at present. If they are living, they are not dead; if they are not dead they may, or may not be mortal. Myriads of human beings, it would seem, had lived upon the globe before I came. I have known only a few, those few whom I found here. Of those who preceded me I have only the testimony in regard to some few that they were actually seen to die and were actually buried, but there are multitudes who may have been translated, who may have glided off our plane and out of our sphere in some other way than by process of mortality. So, when I affirm that all men are mortal I am simply stating what I do not know, what no other man knows, and what, even it be true, no finite being can demonstrate to be true. To be sure of any universal proposition one must know the universe. The same remarks are applicable to the scientific illustration. No man knows all conductors of electricity and therefore he cannot have sensible knowledge that all conductors are non. electrics. If, then, this proposition be true, no man can demonstrate its truth. Thus, in this very process of reasoning we commence with the assumption of what cannot be known to be true, if true, to prove what we assume to be true in the very beginning of the process of proving its truth. It is not only faith in an assumption, but it is faith in an assumption which cannot possibly be demonstrated, if true. This escapes us, probably, because we do not ordinarily state our reasoning in a formal way. We say "John is mortal because he is a man," and assume that all men are mortal, an assumption which may or may not be true, but which is manifestly incapable of proof, if true. And so it is through every department of dialectic science. All the things we consider most clear, most safe, most incontrovertible, are propositions that either in themselves are incapable of proof, if true, or propositions which rest upon other propositions that cannot be proved to be true, even if they are true, and, what is more, cannot be disproved if they are false, as they are outside of reason and apparently can have no residence outside of faith. No religious superstition involves a larger and more gratuitous, unproved and unprovable assumption than the primal and indispensable dogma of dialectics. That immense assumption I think I most clearly perceive; and yet I stand up here and solemnly and sincerely say, "Credo! I believe in the Aristotelian dictum, de omni et nullo." And when I repeat this creed, all men who belong to the Catholic Church Scientific, are bound, under penalty of excommunication, to respond "Amen." From mind let us now turn to matter. If there be anything of which we ought to know something, it is matter, and the constitution thereof. Matter is open to all our senses. If we cannot ascertain what matter is, can we learn anything absolutely? Now what does science teach us in regard to matter? To ancient thought, matter was infinitely divisible. It was apparently fairly argued that it is impossible to conceive of particles so small as not to be capable of division. But, the mod ern chemist assumes that, in point of fact, the divisibility of matter has a limit. This is what Liebig says: "The chemist merely maintains the firm and immutable foundations of his science when he admits the existence of physical atoms as an incontrovertible truth." Now, it so happens that what is assumed to be an incontrovertible truth in regard to the constitution of matter is a proposition, which, if true, cannot be demonstrated, and which, if untrue, cannot be refuted by demonstration. No man pretends to have ever seen an atom. Moreover, it presents for our belief as absolutely fundamental to all physical science that which we cannot even conceive. Look at the very name, "atom," that which cannot be cut or divided; i. e., has no parts. To believe the accepted doctrine of the ultimate constitution of matter we accept two propositions that are absolutely irreconcilable. We believe in the existence of some matter so small that it cannot be cut or divided, while we believe that no matter can exist without the very qualities which furnish the basis of conceivable subdivision. In our imaginations we divide and subdivide, and re-subdivide, and follow out these imaginings of subdivisions infinitely; that is to say, we may be engaged in this process for millions of years, doing nothing else, and yet there will remain in the mind the concept of a particle of matter, on which the imagination can play with scissors of infinite smallness, still subdividing in sæcula sæculorum. An atom is not only an unknowable, but an unthinkable thing to any mind that is not infinite. You must first believe in a person of boundless intellect before you can form to yourself the idea of a person who can even think "atom," much less know "atom"; that is to say, a person who can have an intelligent cognition connected with the word "atom" must have a power of perception to follow down abysses of subdivision beyond all that man can accomplish in this department of thought. But it is held by many to be a superstition to believe in the existence of such a person, because that would be to believe in what can not be proved, if true. A man who should believe in such a personality would be as irrational as the man who believes in an infinite God If it be superstition to believe in a God of infinite personality then science fosters superstition when it comes to us with its first fundamental proposition in regard to the ultimate constitution of mere matter, and demands of us belief in that which is as difficult of conception as any infinity and which requires for the existence of the conception of itself a previous belief in a personal equal to an infinite God. There is much more superstition in believing the atomic theory than in believing what any Deist or any Trinitarian or any Polytheist believes. In this connection science demands some other things of us, viz.: that we shall believe that all the atoms of the same element possess exactly the same weight; that the atoms of different elements possess different weights, and that the number indicating the weight of the atom of any element is the same in the combining or equivalent number for that element. Well here again a great demand is made upon our faith. An atom is infinitely small, that is, has no size whatever; for if it have size it can be divided. But having no size we must believe it has weight, and all atoms must be of the same size since they all have no size; and yet, being of the same size they have different weights, although none of them can have any weight, because, hey have no size. An atom that has weight is an inconceivtable thing. No superstition of Christian, Mohammedan, Jew, Pagan or savage ever demanded of its devotees what we all most steadfastly believe who adopt the modern science of chemistry. That science depends upon this proposition: that any compound substance has exactly the same constituents in the same proportions wherever found. Take two examples, water and common salt. Each molecule of water invariably consists of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen (H,O). The weight of an atom of hydrogen (which is the lightest known element) is represented by the figure I, and it is taken as the standard of comparison of the atomic weights of other substances. Compared with an atom of hydrogen, an atom of oxygen weighs 16. A molecule of common salt consists of one (1) atom of chlorine 35 times heavier than an atom of the standard of comparison, hydrogen, and one atom of sodium, which is 23 times heavier than the hydrogen atom. Upon analysis we get these quantities; in synthesis we use these quantities. Water, salt, and all other compound substances are put together in obedience to certain fixed laws of proportion, invariable in the same kind of compound, although different in the different substances. Matter has a mathematical constitution, so mathematical that we can form tables expressive in numbers of the constitution of any chemical compound. Oxygen, whose atomic weight is, as we have seen, 16, combines with carbon, whose atomic weight is 12, in two proportions. First, in the proportion of an atom of each, giving rise to the compound carbonic (mon)-oxide (CO), whose molecular weight is therefore 16 plus 12, or 28; second, in the proportion of I atom of carbon to 2 of oxygen, forming the compound carbon di-oxide or carbonic acid (CO,) whose molecular weight is 12 plus 16 plus 16, or 44. It will be perceived that the proportion of oxygen in carbonic-acid is a multiple by 2 of that in carbonic-oxide. Again, the atomic weight of nitrogen is 14; i. e., one atom o nitrogen is 14 times as heavy as an atom of the standard, hydroUp to date we have made ourselves acquainted with five distinct chemical compounds of nitrogen with oxygen, viz.: gen. Ist. Nitrogen mon-oxide, containing 28 parts by weight of nitrogen to 16 of oxygen. 2d. Nitrogen di-oxide, containing 28 parts by weight of nitrogen to 32 of oxygen. 3d. Nitrogen tri-oxide, containing 28 parts by weight of nitrogen to 48 of oxygen. 4th. Nitrogen tetr-oxide, containing 28 parts by weight of nitrogen to 64 of oxygen. 5th. Nitrogen pent-oxide, containing 28 parts by weight of nitrogen to 80 of oxygen. It will be seen that the oxygen contained in these compounds is in the proportion of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, to one and the same quantity of nitrogen, a striking example of what science teaches as the law of chemical combination in multiple |