Page:Truth and Error (1898).djvu/24

 particle is endowed. First, it must have unity. There must be one, or it does not exist. Second, it must have extension, for without extension it does not exist. Third, it must have speed, for it cannot have motion without speed, nor can it have force without motion, and a particle of matter not in motion is unknown. The body lying upon the ground at rest is not without motion, for it has the motion of the earth about its axis and the motion of the earth about the sun; it also has a motion of its molecules and atoms, which is heat and structural motion. If the body which is lying upon the ground is moved the motions are deflected and it is impossible to discover that any motion as speed is added to them. Rest is only the absence of molar motion. Fourth, the same particle of matter must have persistence, for persistence is necessary to its existence. Here persistence is used to mean continued existence.

I shall attempt to demonstrate the proposition that every particle of matter has consciousness, and hence the fifth property here called judgment, but shall reserve the discussion of the subject to a later part of the work.

One ultimate particle must have essentials that it may exist, but they are all comprehended in one particle. If we consider the essentials separately we call it abstraction; if we consider them conjointly we call it comprehension, and the terms abstraction and comprehension will be used in these senses only.

These essentials are simple and wholly unlike one another. There is nothing in unity like extension, nothing in extension like speed, nothing in speed like persistence. There is no possible way of