that A, the first degree of solidity, has disappeared, and that B, the second degree of solidity, has not yet come on. In other words, we must suppose that the water has lost one degree of solidity without acquiring any other degree of it; we must suppose that the water in freezing is, at intervals, in no degree of solidity at all; in other words, we must suppose an absurdity.
27. Now, view the freezing process in the way in which I think we ought to view it, and you will perhaps perceive how inseparable Being and not-Being are as the elements in our conception of the process. Let the water be in the degree of solidity A; but A cannot maintain itself. In appearing it disappears; but its disappearance cannot maintain itself. Its disappearance is the appearance of B, a new degree of solidity. In like manner B cannot maintain itself; its appearance is its disappearance; but its disappearance is the appearance of C, a new degree of solidity; and so on the process goes continually and without breaks or intervals until a thaw sets in, and then the process is repeated in an inverse order, fluidity being substituted in the place of solidity.
28. The illustrations I have given you have been drawn from some of the more obvious truths of mathematics, and some of the more obvious and accessible phenomena of nature. In these examples the changes are obtrusive and easily observed, and by
