Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/465

450 suggest or deal with any of the consequences of the changed part or condition of the force, and cannot tell whether they depend on, or are related to, conditions external or internal to the gravitating particle; and, as it appears to me, can say neither yes nor no to any of the arguments or probabilities belonging to the subject.

If the definition denies the occurrence of such contingent results, it seems to me to be unphilosophical; if it simply ignores them, I think it is imperfect and insufficient; if it admits these things, or any part of them, then it prepares the natural philosopher to look for effects and conditions as yet unknown, and is open to any degree of development of the consequences and relations of power:—by denying, it opposes a dogmatic barrier to improvement; by ignoring, it becomes in many respects an inert thing, often much in the way; by admitting, it rises to the dignity of a stimulus to investigation, a pilot to human science.

The principle of the conservation of force would lead us to assume, that when A and B attract each other less because of increasing distance, then some other exertion of power, either within or without them, is proportionately growing up; and again, that when their distance is diminished, as from 10 to 1, the power of attraction, now increased a hundred-fold, has been produced out of some other form of power which has been equivalently reduced. This enlarged assumption of the nature of gravity is not more metaphysical than the half assumption; and is, I believe, more philosophical, and more in accordance with all physical considerations. The half assumption is, in my view of the matter, more dogmatic and irrational than the whole, because it leaves it to be understood that power can be created and destroyed almost at pleasure.

When the equivalents of the various forms of force, as far as they are known, are considered, their differences appear very great; thus, a grain of water is known to have electric relations equivalent to a very powerful flash of lightning. It may therefore be supposed that a very large apparent amount of the force causing the phenomena of gravitation, may be the equivalent of a very small change in some unknown condition of the bodies, whose attraction is varying by change of distance. For my own part, many considerations urge my mind towards the idea of a cause of gravity, which is not resident in the