Note 4 — Chapter III · FALLACIES OF SIMPLE INSPECTION; OR À PRIORI FALLACIES.

The author of one of the Bridgewater Treatises has fallen, as it seems to me, into a similar fallacy when, after arguing in rather a curious way to prove that matter may exist without any of the known properties of matter, and may therefore be changeable, he concludes that it cannot be eternal, because "eternal (passive) existence necessarily involves incapability of change." I believe it would be difficult to point out any other connexion between the facts of eternity and unchangeableness, than a strong association between the two ideas. Most of the à priori arguments, both religious and anti-religious, on the origin of things, are fallacies drawn from the same source.