But if we consider the independent
condition of equipoise from the point of view of mathematical concepts
as, admittedly, without independent existence, there is no need of
indicating the mode in which matter came into a dynamic condition."
Outside of the mechanics of matter a change in movement of matter
depends upon a change in the movement of the most insignificant
particles. "Up to the present we have no universal principle of
knowledge and we must therefore not be surprised if we are somewhat in
the dark as to these matters."

That is all that Herr Duehring has to say, and we should seek the very
pinnacle of wisdom not alone in a mutilation of the creative faculty,
but in blind superstition, if we were to let the matter pass with
these foolish evasions and statements. Absolute stability has no power
of change in itself, Herr Duehring admits this. The absolute condition
of equipoise possesses no means by which it can pass into a dynamic
state. What have we then? Just three false and foolish phrases.

In the first place, Herr Duehring says that to show the transition
from each most insignificant step in the chain of things with which we
are acquainted to the next presents the same difficulty. He seems to
think that his readers are infants. The proof of the transitions and
interrelations of the most insignificant links in the chain of
existence is just what constitutes the subject matter of natural
science. If there is an impediment anywhere, nobody, not even Herr
Duehring, thinks to explain the development as proceeding from
nothing, but on the other hand as only proceeding from transition,
change, and forward movement from a completed evolutionary stage.
Here, however, he undertakes to show with reference to matter that it
proceeds from absence of movement and therefore from nothing.

In the second place, we have the "stable bridge." This does not help
us appreciably over the difficulty, but we have a right to use it as a
bridge between rigid stability and motion. Unfortunately stability
consists in absence of motion, and the question as to the generation
of motion remains as dark a secret as before. And if Herr Duehring
shifts his no-movement at all to universal movement in infinitely
small particles and ascribes to this ever so long a duration of time,
we are still not the thousand part of an inch further from the place
whence we started. Without a creative act we can get nothing from
nothing, not even anythin