STATK IIORTICLLTIRAI, .SOCIETY. I4M 



The general forms of matter are three: solid, licjuid and gaseous; 

 and the forms of motion and force are also three : mechanical, or motion 

 by masses, chemical, or motion by atoms, as in all chemical attractions 

 and organic growths, and trilling, or vibratory, as in the force and motions 

 supposed to produce color and heat, electricity, taste, smell, physical 

 sensations, etc. 



We have no reason to suppose that there is more than one essential, 

 ultimate thing or cause of form called matter ; or but one single thing 

 called force, or cause of motion, in existence, though we give the forms 

 made out of matter, and the motions produced by force, an endless variety 

 of names to suit the endless variety of phenomenal forms, motions, 

 actions, and reactions which they produce. Hence, we have whole groups 

 of distinct names for the varied animal, vegetable, and mineral forms 

 produced out of matter ; and whole groups of distinct names for the varied 

 manifestations of motion by force, either mechanical, chemical, vibratory, 

 or organic. For example, we speak of the force of an engine, or a lever, 

 or a canon ball ; the force of crystallization, growth, life, heat, light, 

 electricity, magnetism, polarity, etc., etc., only meaning, if we know 

 what we are talking about, that wholly unknown cause which produces all 

 the varied manifestations of motion, whether mechanical, chemical, or 

 vibratory and atomic, and not the motions and manifestations themselves. 



It is a great though common l)lunder to confound the phenomena of 

 motion, heat, light, electricity, polarity, etc., etc., with the force or cause 

 which produces these manifestations, in all cases alike. 



The producing cause or force is one thing ; the complex phenomena 

 produced, or the effect on matter, is quite another, even though cause 

 and effect have the same name. But there is no such force as the assumed 

 force of cohesion ; what is so called in our books is simply the innate 

 inertia of matter itself, or its inherent tendency to resist all changes in its 

 present form, motion, or color, or actual condition, until impelled to such 

 change by some new force originating wholly outside itself, or of the 

 masses or atoms to be moved. Still it is a great mistake to suppose that 

 matter can be anywhere actually at rest; no single particle of matter at 

 rest has ever yet been discovered.'' 



*For the sake of completeness, and to guard against misapprehension, it should be 

 added that, wholly outside of all physics, and wholly unaccounted for by any of its 

 possible researches, lie, also, the three modes of known life: 



1. Vegetable life, so called, or that unseen power which organizes forms and mo- 

 tions, and projiagates them in sjiecific kinds. 



2. Add to this the power of perceiving form and motion, as merely agreeable or 

 disagreeable, and we have what we call animal life. 



3. Add to this again the power of perceiving Mr idealizing what wc call instinct, 

 spirit, and causation, and moral good or evil, and we have what we call Iniiiian, rational, 

 or s]Mritual life. 



If our animals, or our jiliilosophers, can nnl perceive this last mode of life or l)eing 

 it is no fault of ours. 



Thus, by last analysis, if we admit that color, heat, etc., are mere modes of niotion, 

 all of known being is found to revolve harmoniously around only si.\ simple elemental 

 things, all alike manilested to our senses through, oi- by means of, sim[)le form and 



