THE CONSTITUTION OF MATTER. 553 



lightning performs an immense work. However this may be, it is 

 impossible to think of the energies that make up the atom otherwise 

 than as of pure force, and the ether itself, whose existence is demon- 

 strated by the whole of physics, can be no otherwise defined than by 

 the attributes of force. It follows from this that atoms, the last con- 

 clusion of chemistry, and ether, the last conclusion of physics, are sub- 

 stantially alike, although they form two distinct degrees, two unequal 

 values, of the same original activity. All those physico-chemical 

 energies, as well as the analogous energies of life, only show themselves 

 to us, save in rare exceptions, clothed with that uniform we call mat- 

 ter. A single one of these energies shows forth, stripped of this dress, 

 and bare. It rules all the others, because it knows them all without 

 their knowing it. It is not power merely, but consciousness besides. 

 It is the soul. How define it otherwise than as force in its purest es- 

 sence, since we look upon it, as on the marble of the antique, in splen- 

 did nakedness, which is radiant beauty too ? 



Whether we consider coarser matter which can be weighed and 

 felt, or that more subtle, lively, and active matter we call ether, or 

 again the spiritual principle, which is energy simple, we have then al- 

 ways before us only harmonious collections of forces, symmetrical 

 activities, ordered powers, more or less conscious of the part they play 

 in the infinite concert for which the Creator has composed the glorious 

 music. Let us set aside for a moment the variety of groupings which 

 determine the succession and the manifold aspects of these forces, and 

 there will remain, as constituent principles of the web of the universe, 

 as irreducible and primordial ingredients of the world, nothing but 

 dynamic points, nothing but monads. 



The term of the rigorous analysis of phenomena is, definitively, the 

 conception of an infinity of centres of similar and unextended forces, 

 of energies without forms, simple and eternal. We ask what these 

 forces are, and we assert in answer that it is impossible to distinguish 

 them from motion. Force may be conceived, but not shaped to the 

 fancy. The clearest and truest thing we can say of it is, that it is an 

 energy analogous to that whose constant and undeniable presence we 

 feel dwelling in our deepest selves. " The only force of which we 

 have consciousness," says Henry Sainte-Claire Deville, "is will." Our 

 soul, which gives us consciousness of force, is also the type of it, in 

 this sense that, if we wish to pierce to the elementary mechanisms of 

 the world, we are imperiously driven to compare its primal activities 

 with the only activity of which we have direct knowledge and intuition, 

 that is to say, with that admirable spring of will, so prompt and sure, 

 which permits us every moment to create and also to guide motion. 



Motion may serve to measure force, but not to explain it. It is as 

 subordinate to the latter as speech is to thought. In truth, motion is 

 nothing else than the series of successive positions of a body in dif- 

 ferent points of space. Force, on the other hand, is the tendency, the 



