Page:On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other.djvu/31

Rh bodies which fall to it, but, that all these bodies possess an attraction, every one towards the other. It is not that the earth has any special power which these balls themselves have not; for just as much power as the earth has to attract these two balls [dropping two ivory balls], just so much power have they in proportion to their bulks to draw themselves one to the other; and the only reason why they fall so quickly to the earth is owing to its greater size. Now, if I were to place these two balls near together, I should not be able, by the most delicate arrangement of apparatus, to make you, or myself, sensible that these balls did attract one another: and yet we know that such is the case, because, if instead of taking a small ivory ball, we take a mountain, and put a ball like this near it, we find that, owing to the vast size of the mountain, as compared with the billiard ball, the latter is drawn slightly towards it; shewing clearly that an attraction does exist, just as it did between the shell-lac which I rubbed and the piece of paper which was overturned by it.

Now, it is not very easy to make these things