_4. Uncreatability of Matter:_ "Conceive the space before you to be cleared of all bodies save one. Now imagine the remaining one not to be removed from its place, but to lapse into nothing while standing in that place. You fail. The space which was solid you cannot conceive becoming empty, save by transfer of that which made it solid. * * * However small the bulk to which we conceive a piece of matter reduced, it is impossible to conceive it reduced into nothing. While we can represent to ourselves the parts of the matter as approximated, we cannot represent to ourselves the quantity of matter as made less. To do this would be to imagine some of the constituent parts compressed into nothing; which is no more possible than to imagine compression of the whole into nothing. Our inability to conceive matter becoming non-existent, is immediately consequent on the 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."--First Principles, p. 181. _5. Conservation of Mass:_ "This law, known as the law of the conservation of mass, states that no particle of matter, however small, may be created or destroyed. All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot destroy a pin's head. We may smash that pin's head, dissolve it in acid, burn it in the electric furnace, employ, in a word, every annihilating agency, and yet that pin's head persists in being. Again, it is as uncreatable as it is indestructible. In other words, we cannot create something out of nothing. The material must be furnished for every existent article. The sum of matter in the universe is 'X' pounds,--and, while it may be carried through a myriad forms, when all is said and done, it is just-'X' pounds." (The New Knowledge, R. K. Duncan, p. 3, 1905.) _6. Extension of Matter Through Infinite Space:_ "Through all eternity the infinite universe has been, and is, subject to the law of substance. * * * The extent of the universe is infinite and unbounded; it is empty in no part, but everywhere filled with substance. The duration of the world (i. e. universe) is equally infinite and unbounded; it has no beginning and no end: it is eternity. Substance is everywhere and always in uninterrupted movement and transformation: nowhere is there perfect repose and rigidity; yet the infinite quantity of matter and of eternally changing force remains constant." (The Riddle of the Universe, Erast Haeckel, p. 242.)