It is worthy however of remark that of these two, matter and form, both absolutely dependent on space for their existence (although not an attribute of this in any way), matter cannot be thought of without form, but form can be thought of apart from matter, as a mere limitation of emptiness. In other words, the idea of form must come before that of matter, and is pre-essential to this. By a purely deductive process this should lead us to question whether essential reality does not lie rather in the concept "form" than in the concept "matter." And a notable confirmation of this is given when we consider a common error of speech. We say "all forms change," and naturally therefore attribute non-essentiality to form; but we really mean to say "matter is continually changing in form"—leaving one form and entering into another. This statement is a correct one, and fully accords with the last word of physics to-day. Evolution has made it abundantly clear that the most lasting, changeless, adamantine thing in the manifested world is form. Nature grinds the rocks to powder and turns metals to gases in infinitely quicker time and with less effort than she modifies ever so little the forms of manifestation. Form ever recurs and matter—as we know it—again and again obediently fills the outlines. But as if the deductive argument for the superiority of form over matter in its eternal existence were not enough, inductive science as well is day by day dissolving so-called matter to nothingness, or more strictly, to a mere incident of form, produced to meet the conditions of sense-perception. A physical universe is daily becoming a less proven fact. Gravitation is laid down as a universal material law, notwithstanding that certain facts attendant on cometary bodies had to be thereby incidentally slurred over, but from the Lick telescope we now hear that late observations indicate some other force than gravitation as the dominating one in certain nebulæ. But a blow at the nebular hypothesis rocks the very citadel of the physical theory.