another name for force? Forgetting how this reduction is made, they are dealing with abstractions or mental figments, and losing their way in an endless maze of metaphysics. Do those who speak so confidently of laws of nature as something real and effective ever reflect that the two terms are more or less relative to each other, and that there is some latent metaphor in the phrase? Or if they prefer to speak of laws of phenomena, on which word is the accent to be laid? Those who thus speak of matter and force, really speak of a matter which is formed and form-possessed, capable of determining its own form, and of a force which can rule its own exertions: and for such conceptions the words in question are scarcely adequate representatives. They use the language of the Second, to express notions which properly belong to the Third branch of Logic. The whole range of Essence or Relativity exhibits a sort of see-saw: while one term goes up in importance, the other term goes down. The several antitheses, too, have their day of fashion, and give place to others. Those inquirers who speak of the phenomena of nature shrug their shoulders at the very mention of essences: and the practical man, whose field is actuality, acquires a very pronounced contempt for both abstractions. One class of investigators glories in the perpetual discovery of differences, and stigmatises the seekers after identity and similarity as dreamers: while the latter retort, and name the specialisers empiricists. One intellect considers an action almost solely by its grounds or motives: another almost solely by its consequences. Some console themselves for their degradation by piquing themselves on what they might have been: others despise these 'would-be' minds for what they practically are. What a wealth there lies in each of us, which our nearest friends know nothing of, and which has never been made outward! But in this mode of thought, it is the persistent delusion, misleading science no less than metaphysics and the reflective thinking of ordinary life, to suppose that either of two relative terms has an existence and value of its own. In Germany paper-money is sometimes known as 'Schein' or Show. That term marks its relativity to the gold or silver currency of the realm: and it would be as absurd to pay with Austrian paper-money in Persia, as to take one term of Essence apart from its correlative. The disputes about essences, about matters and forces, about substance, about freedom and necessity, or cause and effect, are generally aggravated by a forced abstraction of one term from another on which its meaning and existence depend.