What has really been accomplished, however, by the experiment? I do not object to the statement that Matter is indestructible, but the meaning of this explicitly stated, is that in the light of the present knowledge of the race, we have experimented with Matter under certain extreme conditions--some chemical changes seeming, at first glance, to annihilate it--and have not been able to destroy it, therefore, Matter is indestructible. While this is true to an extent which preserves the integrity of the foundation for _our_ Science and _our_ Philosophy, it is at the same time consistent with the hypothesis that a Being surpassing man in intelligence and power, may be able to convert Matter into a not-matter--from the standpoint of present definitions of Matter and Space--quantitatively correlated with it, or _vice versa_; and this statement of the case harmonizes Science and Religion. Now, what from the point of view of Science Mr. Spencer accepts as indestructibility, is identical with what Religion means when it affirms self-existence, and as he has demonstrated to his own satisfaction that self-existence in the abstract is an illegitimate conception, a conception of what by its very nature is unknowable, because it involves the impossible conception of infinite past-time, he is logically bound by accepting one horn of the dilemma, to admit the conception of self-existence into the realm of the Knowable, or by choosing the other, to transfer his "Indestructibility," his "possibility of exact Science" into the realm of the Unknowable! In either event, we place an ultimate religious idea and a scientific conception whose denial he admits to be the annihilation of exact Science, upon the same footing, and so reduce the distinguishing characteristic which he has set up to differentiate the Knowable from the Unknowable, to zero.