Page phenomena of taste the feeling of beauty anterior to the cogitative process by which fitness is discovered-two classes of beautiful objects, viz. such as are kaleidoscopic or possess merely forms and colours which please the eye, and such as are grand, or graceful, or are expressive of mind—the former depends upon superficies, the latter upon lines or edges- those superficies are most beautiful which are most harmoni- ous with or can be imitated in the radiant tissue which con- stitutes the sensorium most perfectly, those lines are the most graceful which make the nearest approach in their forms to the axis of the cerebral column-these principles shewn to ex- plain the phenomena of sculpture, painting, music, and archi- tecture-our feelings of sensible beauty are therefore limited by our organization-the observation of every thing which has fitness for its existence would certainly excite that very plea- sant state of mind which induces us to say that the object which awakes it is beautiful, if the mind could enter into that body, or derive a sensorium from it, which could be easily conformed to it, or modelled after it-hence while our mind continues embodied, we can form but a poor estimate of what creation really is, or of our own capacity to enjoy its beauty -hence also the using our taste as a standard by which to judge all things, is one of the greatest blunders of philoso- phy-Having shewn that visible beauty arises from the ex- cited parts of the sensorium becoming assimilated to the vi- sible object said on this account to be beautiful, it is inferred that the feeling of moral beauty, or beauty not pictorial, arises from an imitation in the state of the mind itself of that which it admires-love is admiration of beauty along with the social desire to be similar to or identified with the object loved-the love of the Supreme Being therefore is the me- chanism by which we become likened to Him and are des- tined to grow in goodness and happiness-conclusion, 543-616 INDEX OF ATOMIC WEIGHTS AT THE ZERO OF HEAT, EXPLANATION OF PLATES, 627 3 BOOK I. ON THE STRUCTURE AND ACTION OF MATTER. OF MATTER. 1. THE phenomena of Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology, have usually led reflecting men to assume the existence of three orders of substances or agents. Of these one, which is named Mind, cannot be made an object of sense, nor known except by consciousness, and its action impressed upon the others; the second, including Light, Electricity, and Magnetism, may be shewn to possess in certain circumstances the properties of resistance and elasticity, but cannot be made opaque so as to be visible, nor be directly felt by the sense of touch; while the third, of which our bodily organs themselves consist, is (and as will be afterwards shewn for this very reason) both visible and tangible. These three orders of agents are, however, generally treated of as belonging to two classes, viz. mind and matter, the properties of the former being sensibility and cogitation, of the latter, extension, divisibility, elasticity, &c. and a liability to be acted on by mind. In the three first books of the following work we shall occupy ourselves with an investigation of the phenomena of matter, while the fourth will contain an inquiry as to the existence, and a cursory view of the phenomena of mind. 2. On instituting an inquiry as to the qualities possessed A by matter, that which at once strikes us as the most obvious is form. For since matter is a substance extended in space, and space is nothing but mere extension in length, breadth, and depth, it follows that matter is an extension of a nature dissimilar to space, and therefore on every side, at the confines between space and matter, a superficies must be developed as a boundary of the substantial thing. But the sum of such superficies constitutes a form: every portion of matter, therefore, surrounded by a medium dissimilar to itself, must have a form; and unless we are to base philosophy on that which is inconceivable, we must admit that this form which limits its substance, defines also the extent of that body as an agent. Another property which matter in one state or other possesses universally, is elasticity, or the capacity of suffering an alteration of form, and of making an effort spontaneously to recover itself when the force which constrained it is removed. From this most important property we learn, that matter is not indifferent to every state of existence, but possesses one condition more congenial to its nature than another, in virtue of which it tends to this natural state as often as it has by any accident been driven out of it. The action of matter, therefore, does not consist only in a mere yielding to an extrinsic impulse, and in remaining for ever in the state into which it has been thrown, but in its capacity to suffer such a change from without, together with that of subsequently making a conatus from within, to recover a certain condition more natural to it than another. As has been already stated, matter exists in two states, differing from each other in so many features, that it is necessary to consider them individually. The one may be called Hard or Atomic Matter, and the other Motorial or Subtile Matter; terms, the former of which corresponds to body as commonly understood, and the latter to the "subtile spirit' described in the last paragraph of the PRINCIPIA OF NEWTON, or to that class of bodies often named Imponderable Substances, with the exclusion of heat. OF ATOMIC MATTER. 3. When any body is stript of the subtile matter which penetrates its pores and invests it, to which it owes its colour, degree of hardness, specific form, electrical state, and other sensible or chemical properties, there remains a mass of impenetrable particles, which, taken individually, are so excessively minute, that it is difficult to compare them with any visible magnitude. One grain weight of gold may be extended over a surface of five square feet, without any visible intervals between the particles, though it be generally believed that a particle of gold is more than a hundred times as heavy as one of hydrogen gas; and, therefore, we should infer much larger also. As far down as we are able to carry microscopical observation, organized forms are discovered so minute, that it requires good eyes and glasses to render them visible; and any animal, or plant, however simple, must certainly be composed of a great many of the least parts into which matter is ultimately divided. 4. But whatever be their actual magnitude, it is to be remarked of the particles of matter, that they possess different weights, and, to judge from all phenomena, different magnitudes and forms also, in different species of chemical and natural bodies; while in the same body, they always possess these qualities the same. These facts, the truth of which has been generally anticipated by philosophers, have, within these few years, been placed beyond doubt by the discovery of the combining ratios of chemical substancea discovery which, along with those simultaneously made in physical optics and electro-magnetism, or the dynamics of subtile matter, forms the grand achievement of this age; and the doctrines advanced in this work derive their evidence chiefly from these sources. 5. With regard to the nature of these specific particles, a question has often been agitated, which is of the greatest importance in physics. Are these different sorts of that impenetrable substance called matter? or do all the distinctive qualities of natural and chemical bodies arise from differences in the form and arrangement of ultimate parts, which are universally the same in the quality of the naked substance of which they are constituted? Were it necessary to entertain the opinion, that there really exist portions of matter such, that, though their forms, agnitudes, and mathematical conditions generally, were every way the same, they remained heterogeneous still, then we could no longer cultivate Philosophy under the inspiring hope that she might one day reveal to us the structure of the universe. For if we admitted into the constitution of terraqueous bodies several kinds of matter, essentially distinct from each other, there could be no just limits to conjecture as to the nature and variety of the matter which existed in other regions of space; and to explain this phenomena of the heavens, we might have recourse to as many hypotheses as there are stars, not one of which could be either proved or disproved. Sir H. Davy says, in his Elements of Chemical Philosophy, which are now rendered infinitely precious, "If that sublime idea of the ancient philosophers, which has been sanctioned by the approbation of Newton, should be true, namely, that there is only one species of matter, the different chemical, as well as mechanical, forms of which are owing to the different arrangements of its particles, then a method of analysing these forms may probably be found in their relations to radiant matter." (P. 223.) It is the principal object of this work to attempt the analysis here anticipated by this great philosopher and chemist, to shew that there is only one kind of impenetrable matter; that it may be ultimately divided into atoms, uniform in size and shape; and that the particles of chemical and natural bodies, commonly called their atoms, are structures constituted of these ultimate atoms, more or less powerfully retained in union, and admitting of decomposition or not, according to the manner in which they are |