Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/237



Motion is the relative change of place among bodies or particles.

Force is never a substance, but the measure of motion, or of the endeavor of substance to assume motion or a certain condition. The difficulty encountered by materialistic scientists in clearly distinguishing between matter, force, and motion, is readily accounted for. Having perceived that certain forces are of too high and complex a character to be attributes of the grosser forms of matter, they could not attach them thereto; having denied the existence of the higher degrees of material substance, they are precluded assigning them there; and perceiving that there can not be activity apart from substance, they could not explain them as modes of motion, consequently they have covered their errors in the only manner left to them, namely, by ascribing the majority of forces to the sepulchre of the unknown, as in such cases they are wont.

Force, which in every instance is substance in