_Squeezes and kicks_ are something incalculably recent, evolved and not primeval. They presuppose something which holds together and _can_ press and strike! But how could it hold together? 623. There is nothing _unalterable_ in chemistry: this is only appearance, a mere school prejudice. We it was who _introduced_ the unalterable, taking it from metaphysics as usual, Mr. Chemist. It is a mere superficial judgment to declare that the diamond, graphite, and carbon are identical. Why? Simply because no loss of substance can be traced in the scales! Well then, at least they have something in common; but the work of the molecules in the process of changing from one form to the other, an action we can neither see nor weigh, is just exactly what makes one material something different--with specifically different qualities. 624. _Against_ the physical _atom._--In order to understand the world, we must be able to reckon it up; in order to be able to reckon it up, we must be aware of constant causes; but since we find no such constant causes in reality, we _invent_ them for ourselves and call them atoms. This is the origin of the atomic theory. The possibility of calculating the world, the possibility of expressing all phenomena by means of formulæ--is that really "understanding"? What would be understood of a piece of music, if all that were calculable in it and capable of being expressed in formulas, were reckoned up?--Thus "constant causes", things, substances, something "unconditioned," were therefore _invented_;--what has been attained thereby? 625. The mechanical concept of "movement" is already a translation of the original process into the _language of symbols of the eye and the touch._ The concept _atom,_ the distinction between the "seat of a motive force and the force itself," is a _language of symbols derived from our logical and physical world._ It does not lie within our power to alter our means of expression: it is possible to understand to what extend they are but symptomatic. To demand an _adequate means of expression is nonsense_: it lies at the heart of a language, of a medium of communication, to express _relation_ only.... The concept "truth" is _opposed to good sense._ The whole province of truth--_falseness_ only applies to the relations between beings, not to an "absolute." There is no such thing as a "being in itself" (_relations_ in the first place constitute being), any more than there can be "knowledge in itself." 626. "_The feeling of force_ cannot proceed from movement: feeling in general cannot proceed from movement."