"Matter and motion," they say, are alone indestructible.

Life is neither matter nor motion,

Therefore: Life is not indestructible.

This syllogism is manifestly unanswerable, if there be no fallacy in the
distribution of its major and minor terms. But wherein lies the
incompatibility of reversing the order of its terms, so as to prove that
neither matter nor motion is indestructible? And would such a judgment,
thus derived, be any more spurious, the process of reasoning any more
illicit, or the conclusion any less unanswerable? We might as well say
that neither matter nor motion is an absolute entity in the universe,
without some apprehensive intelligence, or rational intuition therein, to
embrace them as distinct concepts or objects of thought; nor can either
have the least conceivable attribute without some co-existing intelligence
to ascribe it. For to ascribe an attribute, is to conceive or think of
such attribute. And as our general conceptions are conceded to be
realities, even by the materialists themselves, it necessarily follows
that this conscious _ego_--this thing that conceives, thinks, ascribes
attributes--is either co-existent with matter, or else antedates it in the
order of existence. And here--at this identical point in the argument--we
are irresistibly forced back, in our inductive processes, to the
theological conception of a God--the one supreme _Ego_ of the
universe--from whom alone all our intuitions of consciousness, as well as
apprehensive intelligence, is derived.

We can no more get rid of these inductive processes than we can change the
order of nature or reverse the inevitable laws of thought. Hence, we are