motion,--statics and kinetics,--can we do more? Ether can be
strained, matter can be moved: I doubt whether we see more than
this happening in the whole material universe. This dictum is
elaborated elsewhere.

With it, I cannot pretend that all these things are thoroughly
intelligible, but the lines on which an explanation may be forthcoming
seem to be laid down:--the notion being that what we see is a temporary
apparition or incarnation of a permanent entity or idea.

It is easiest to explain my meaning by aid of analogues,--by the
construction, as it were, of "models," just as is the custom in Physics
whenever a recondite idea has to be grasped before it can be properly
formulated and before a theory is complete.

I will take two analogies: one from Magnetism and one from Politics.

"Parliament," or "the Army," is a body which consists of individual
members constantly changing, and its existence is not dependent on
their existence: it pre-existed any particular set of them, and it can
survive a dissolution. Even after a complete slaughter, the idea of the
Army would survive, and another would come into being, to carry on the
permanent traditions and life.

Except as an idea in some sentient mind, it could not be said to exist
at all. The mere individuals composing it do not make it: without the
idea they would be only a disorganised mob. Abstractions like the
British Constitution, and other such things, can hardly be said to have
any incarnate existence. These exist _only_ as ideas.

Parliament exists fundamentally as an idea, and it can be called into
existence or re-incarnated again. Whether it is the same Parliament or
not after a general election is a question that may be differently
answered. It is not identical, it may have different characteristics,
but there is certainly a sort of continuity; it is still a British
Parliament, for instance, it has not changed its character to that of
the French Assembly or the American Congress. It is a permanent entity
even when disembodied; it has a past and it has a future; it has a
fundamentally continuous existence though there are breaks or
dislocations in its conspicuous activity, and though each incarnation
has a separate identity or personality of its own. It is larger and
more comprehensive than any individual representation of it; it may be
said to have a "subliminal self," of which any septennial period sees
but a meagre epitome.

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