Part 3

In consequence of all mankind being similarly organised, that which seems coloured, sonorous, hot, acid, or aromatic to one person, is so to every one else with sane eyes and senses; by which unanimity of opinion, in these respects, prevails throughout the great family of man, in the worldly concerns of active life, and the social compact is maintained indissoluble.

The all-wise, benevolent dispensation of the senses, by which man's existence is supplied with enjoyments not in all nature otherwise to bestow; and his intellectual faculties provided with means of contemplating the attributes of his Maker through his knowledge, such as it is, of the creation, which makes known to us not only God's regard for his creatures, but his supreme omniscience in the economy made manifest throughout all his works. Were bodies coloured as we imagine, there should be an element of each red, yellow, and blue atoms; elements of sound, heat, and cold; elements of flavour and odour innumerable: whereas, by the substitution of sensations, matter without any such qualities, or any whatever, excepting that of being everlasting, is made subservient to the formation of a universe of worlds, teeming with beauty, harmony, and wonders; all contributing to the comfort, enjoyment, happiness, edification, and future hope of its sojourning inhabitants.

Now, when from the established philosophy we deduct gravitation, attraction and repulsion, which are as foreign to inert matter as vitality to the dead,--the host of chymicals, so repugnant to the principle of inertia,--the imaginary living principles, erroneously imputed to the mechanical organs of the animal system,--the sensations of luminousness, light, colour, sound, heat, cold, acidity, and of flavours and odours,--when the entire of these unphysical, mere nominals, are deducted from modern philosophy, there remains nothing whatever to produce action, physical change, or motion, excepting pressure, which has been always looked upon as a mere adjunct to the imagined numerous powers of nature. When common sense has rejected the whole, then will the philosophy of the Fathers be valued by the world, as would be a garment with more holes than threads.

MATTER

As a general term, matter, means substance; with scientific precision, the term is confined to the elementary state, in contradistinction to the term body, applied to matter consolidated into solids and fluids.

Matter consists of atoms, which are hard, opaque, unalterable, of homogeneous substance, of the spheric shape, and naturally inert, therefore of inactive essence; being inert, various species of substance would be useless. The spherical shape admits immediate atomic contact, and leaves interstices uniformly throughout all bodies. There cannot be either communication or alteration of the essence of inert matter; and what the essence of unalterable matter may be, is impossible, and would be useless, to know.

An element is any volume of atoms of the same size. There is no difference between elements but in the size of their atoms.

Every element is a rarer medium to every other element of larger atoms; the minor is as a partial vacuum to the major, which involves the principle of inequality, on which motion depends.

Correlative elements are any two, the atoms of one of which are fitted for the interstices of the other, and for no other interstices. Such elements will naturally be together. On the correlative principle magnetism depends.

All bodies consist of several elements; there is nothing simple, but an element. Bodies are divisible, matter is not.

All bodies include a portion of elementary or electric matter, which is removed without injury to their general texture.

Matter can suffer no change but change of place.

Weight is an accident of matter, the effect of motion: all effect consists in motion; there is no result until effect has ended in rest.

Rest being natural to inert matter, is no effect, has no cause.

There is no power but impulsive pressure; nor is there any effect whatever attributable to inertia.

The fundamental principle of inertia is that only from which the philosophy of nature is deducible: all philosophy is false which is not consistent throughout with this universal, all-directing principle.

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Note.--The terms electric and elementary are of the same signification, which is, highly rare: quality and power to act are wholly out of the question with the inert atoms of the elements of bodies and matter.

MOTION.

Motion admits of no definition, from being but a local casuality of transitory endurance; motion is the same in all things, from an atom to a planet, against which all difference in velocity and direction makes no exception.

Impulsive pressure is the only cause analogous to the mechanical effect motion; pressure is universal because matter is inert.

Motion is not natural to inert matter: the term is expressive of the local condition of a body, while the body is prevented remaining where it is, and while the body is being passed through contiguous portions of space.

THERE IS NO CAUSE OF MOTION BUT PHYSICAL IMPULSE.

As effect and cause are necessarily equal, so is motion the measure of impulse, in time. Therefore as long as a body is in motion it is being impelled, however insensible the impelling cause. Motion must be in the direction of impulse; for, as a body cannot move itself, and is the passive patient of impulse, so must its direction be the same as that of impulse; therefore when the direction of motion is changed, it must be by a novel impulse in the novel direction.

From all matter being in motion, and all effect consisting in motion, and because like effects everywhere are attributable to the like or same cause, so must there be a cause of motion as universal as matter; rather than that there should be a distinct impelling cause for every individual motion following after the body, to put and keep it in motion. In all philosophic research the golden rule of nature should be held in mind, which prescribes "the shortest mode and fewest materials:" to mistake on the side of simplicity is more wise than censurable in the search after natural physical truths.

A universal cause of motion, it would seem, can be no other than a universal medium, a medium of pressure, one occupying the regions of planetary space, competent to keep the planets in interminable motion and effect all terrestrial minor motion: only by such means is it conceivable how the earth can be under endless, ever-varying impulse, productive of ever-changing direction. When impulsively pressed into motion by such a medium, the direction of a planet must be orbicular, on account of the pressure on the solar side being always less than on the opposite, by which the projectile direction is diverted from rectilinear to curvilinear.

Newton imagined that a medium, and however rare, occupying the regions of space, must retard, in time destroy, and eventually require the hand of Deity to restore the primeval order of planetary motion: no very bright idea of the great mathematician, considering the Omniscience of the Projector of a self-going, self-regulating Universe. Whereas a medium as dense as molten gold, could produce no such disorder as long as impulse is greater than resistance; which the long-continuance and order of planetary motion strongly seem to indicate is the case. Were there no medium in space, the planets must be at rest; one could not possibly affect another but by its shadow: Uranus being agitated by the greatly remote presence of Neptune, is proof of there being a connecting medium between. Gravitation is supposed to move the body possessed of the property, forwards,--why not every way?--to the sun or towards some neighbouring planet, but not to send that body or planet an agitating warning of its presence. How is gravitation within one planet to keep another in a state of agitation; which agitation being motion--a mechanical effect--is proof of there being a medium by which mediate connection is maintained between the two, Uranus and Neptune. Without a planetary medium there could be no system of planets. Suppose the existence of such a medium, then its sudden removal,--must not every subordinate system, which makes part of the universal system, become disjointed the same instant? Besides, from the laws of vision, rather of optics, there is equal proof that space contains a medium. There is no light to come from a star to the eye; there is nothing of sight belonging to the eye-balls; and there must be something between a star and the sense to connect the star with the sense; or how is the sense or brain to be so affected by the star, as that the perception or sensation shall be always the same when the eye-ball lenses are directed to the same star; and only by a universal medium can all the stars of the hemisphere be in connection with the eye at the same time, or the time of a few winks of the eye. Therefore until it is proved that constant planetary motion can be without constant and equal corresponding impulse, as to direction; and that a star can affect the sense of itself, immediately or with nothing between, all denial of planetary space being occupied by a medium of pressure, is utterly untenable.

THE MEDIUM OF SPACE.