Every theorem in geometry is a law of external nature, and might have been ascertained by generalizing from observation and experiment, which in this case resolve themselves into comparison and measurement. But it was found practicable, and being practicable, was desirable, to deduce these truths by ratiocination from a small number of general laws of nature, the certainty and universality of which are obvious to the most careless observer, and which compose the first principles and ultimate premises of the science. Among these general laws must be included the same two which we have noticed as ultimate principles of the Science of Number also, and which are applicable to every description of quantity; viz. The sums of equals are equal, and Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another; the latter of which may be expressed in a manner more suggestive of the inexhaustible multitude of its consequences, by the following terms: Whatever is equal to any one of a number of equal magnitudes, is equal to any other of them. To these two must be added, in geometry, a third law of equality, namely, that lines, surfaces, or solid spaces, which can be so applied to one another as to coincide, are equal. Some writers have asserted that this law of nature is a mere verbal definition; that the expression "equal magnitudes" _means_ nothing but magnitudes which can be so applied to one another as to coincide. But in this opinion I cannot agree. The equality of two geometrical magnitudes cannot differ fundamentally in its nature from the equality of two weights, two degrees of heat, or two portions of duration, to none of which would this pretended definition of equality be suitable. None of these things can be so applied to one another as to coincide, yet we perfectly understand what we mean when we call them equal. Things are equal in magnitude, as things are equal in weight, when they are felt to be exactly similar in respect of the attribute in which we compare them: and the application of the objects to each other in the one case, like the balancing them with a pair of scales in the other, is but a mode of bringing them into a position in which our senses can recognise deficiencies of exact resemblance that would otherwise escape our notice.