"[42]
Now while I agree with Mr. Fiske that we have here "the most subtle
conclusion now within the ken of the scientific speculator, reached without
any disregard of the canons prescribed by the doctrine of relativity," I
would like to point out to minds less clear-sighted than his, that this
same "doctrine of relativity" effectually debars us from using this
"conclusion" as an argument of any assignable value in favour of Theism.
For the value of conceivability as a test of truth, on which this
conclusion is founded, is here vitiated by the consideration that,
_whatever_ the nature of Force-units may be, we can clearly perceive it to
be a subjective necessity of the case that they should admit of being more
easily conceived by us to be of the nature of Feeling-units than to be of
any other nature. For as units of Feeling are the only entities of which we
are, or can be, conscious, they are the entities into which units of Force
must be, so to speak, subjectively translated before we can cognise their
existence at all. Therefore, _whatever_ the real nature of Force-units may
be, ultimate analysis must show that it is more conceivable to identify
them in thought with the only units of which we are cognisant, than it is
to think of them as units of which we are not cognisant, and concerning
which, therefore, conception is necessarily impossible. Or thus, the only
alternative with respect to the classifying of Force-units lies between
refusing to classify them at all, or classifying them with the only
ultimate units with which we are acquainted.
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