taneous force of changing their state or position; wherever a body is placed by any external cause, there it must remain for ever unless acted upon by some disturbing force. This property of matter is termed its inertia, or passive resistance to a change of position."* These statements, the view of the ancient philosophers and that of modern physicists, will be found identical so far as each had the means of observation, for every day it is becoming more and more manifest that all forces are but modes or modifications of what we call "motion." We must, however, not anticipate, but must feel our footing step by step. What is more, as we are dealing with an obscure problem, we must carefully avoid adding to its obscurity by the use of technical phraseology, must employ terms that are simple and well understood; and in taking our first step, must seek to place ourselves upon the firmest possible standpoint. The very terms inert and inertia show clearly that our conception of matter is, that of itself it is incapable of motion. Motion is strictly speaking not a property of matter, any more than rest can be called one of its properties, nor yet is it a force. It is, as we shall find presently, the result rendered conscious to our minds, of force acting upon matter. Sometimes it is called an "affection" of matter; a mode in which matter is affected or acted upon; and the various forces are indicated to us by "the relation of the affections of matter to each other and to matter."† * Brooke's edition (6th) of Golding Bird's 'Natural Philosophy,' p. 145. Churchill. † Grove, 'On the Correlation of the Physical Forces,' 5th edition, p. 4. Longmans, 1867. In this and other extracts we have italicised what may be termed the operative words in our argument. There is no room for misunderstanding what is meant by these expressions. Sir Isaac Newton, a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, explains his views concerning force and motion with sufficient clearness to be comprehended by a child. "A body at rest will continue at rest, and if in motion it will continue to move in a right line with uniform velocity, unless acted upon by some external force." Grove, a chemist and physicist, says: "The term force, although used in different senses by different authors, in its limited sense may be defined as that which produces or resists motion."* Tyndall, a physicist, speaking of vapour, in one of his later essays,† says: "The vapour molecules are kept asunder by forces which virtually or actually are forces of repulsion." And again: "The molecules do separate from each other when the external pressure is lessened or removed, but the atoms do not. The reason of this stability is that two forces, the one attractive and the other repulsive, are in operation between every two atoms." It is obvious that he here conceives of Force as of a living Being pushing two objects asunder, or drawing them together; and elsewhere he says of the force Light:‡ "It is a train of innumerable waves excited in, and propagated through" the hypothetical ether. * Grove, 'On the Correlation of the Physical Forces,' 5th edition, p. 16. Longmans, 1867. + "On Chemical Rays:" "The Fortnightly,' Feb., 1869, p. 228. + Ibid., p. 229. And of chemical force, or chemical activity, he says (same page): "I do not think that any really scientific mind at the present day will be disposed to draw a substantial distinction between chemical and mechanical phenomena. They differ from each other as regards the magnitudes of the masses involved, but in this sense the phenomena of astronomy differ also from those of ordinary mechanics." Sir John Herschel, an astronomer and a physicist,* conceives of Force: "As the originator of motion in matter, without bodily contact or the intervention of any intermedium.”† The late Dr. William Allen Miller, an eminent chemist, held that there is a quantity of force or energy, and says ‡ "that the quantity of force or energy associated with matter is definite may be illustrated in various ways." He then proceeds to show the "fixity in the proportion of heat which is associated with a given quantity of matter." Again he says:§ "But it appears further that there is no such thing as a destruction of energy. The cases in which a superficial examination would lead to the conclusion that force is annihilated show, on closer investigation, that such a supposition is erroneous. The only mode in which we can judge of the existence of a force is from the effects which it produces, and of these effects that which is most universal is the power either of producing motion, of arresting it, or * On the Origin of Force, Lectures on Scientific Subjects,' p. 467. Strahan. † Meaning material intermedium. 'Chemical Physics,' 4th edition, Part I., p. 615. Longmans, 1867. § Ibid., p. 616. of altering its direction; whatever possesses this power has been looked upon as a form of force. Motion is consequently regarded as the signal of force. There is no difficulty in showing that gravity, elasticity, cohesion, and adhesion are all forces in the sense of the above definition. But even the more subtle and complex agents, light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and chemical action are all capable of originating motion, and may be fairly admitted under the definition of force above given." So then, in these well-considered expressions of men of varying minds, all trained to reason inductively from experiments made in their own branches of science, and it would be almost safe to add, from the leading observers of every age, we have the assertion, conscious or unpremeditated,— and all the more valuable to us as evidence where it is unpremeditated, that matter is one entity; passive, inert, incapable of exertion or spontaneous movement; whilst Force is another entity, active, energetic, measurable, versatile (or "convertible" as it is technically called), indestructible, all-pervading; and although ever associated in our minds with matter, yet that it is something as distinct from it as we can possibly conceive two entities or existences to be distinct from one another. And as the presence of this complex variable Power in nature is shown by science, so far as any fact is demonstrable, to be different from the material universe, we are justified in saying that science supports the first step towards the belief in a non-corporeal, metaphysical existence. It gives reality to what may be called the spiritual hand, which if carefully followed will show us something of the "unknown God" in nature. Nor is this view confined to the scientific speculator or reasoner; it is held, consciously or otherwise, by men of every nation and degree. Not only does the astronomer consider the "disturbing force" which warns him of the existence somewhere in the heavens of an undiscovered planet, and the physician or student of living forms speak of the "energy" of life having increased or diminished (for we shall find that vital and physical force are but variations of the same power in nature), but, to conclude with a very homely and popular illustration, if to-morrow one of our readers whilst passing along a public thoroughfare should be killed by the fall of a slate from a roof, the practical jury who would have to pronounce on the cause of his death, the coroner who would preside over them, and the orthodox clergyman who performed the last offices of religion, all would be agreed that the victim of what we call "accident," died "by the hand of God." So far, then, the teachings of science and the enlightened popular theological faith are at one. |