68 FORMATION OF SHELLS OF ANIMALS, ETC., 
either come into existence in separate places or at sepa- 
rate times, that is, they must not be within the sphere of 
each other’s attraction or impulsion, for they would then 
be formed into globules or crystals before they had time 
to acquire their specific form. Now, as no experimental 
or natural process can be conceived by which a molecule 
is formed alone, this condition seems to be impossible. 
Hence, so far evidence is opposed to the views of both 
these classes of philosophers, and the probability seems 
more in favour of an amorphous condition of matter prior 
to its arrangement into globules or crystals. But, fur- 
thermore, if attraction and impulsion are the forces to 
which all the known and appreciable forms of matter are 
due (and the correctness of this supposition, especially as 
respects attraction, no one doubts), then, if the component 
molecules making up these forms have themselves a defi- 
nite form, whether angular or spherical, or some modifi- 
cation of these, some unknown force or forces must have 
exerted a prior influence upon them, affecting each mole- 
cule separately—something in the same way as gravity 
and impulsion have been shown to affect them collectively— 
or these molecules must have in themselves the power of 
giving themselves a form. Now, as there is no evidence 
of any such force or of such an inherent power in matter, 
the idea of a definite form of the nascent particles of 
matter is unsupported by any kind of proof, and therefore 
is entirely untenable; and the only inference is, that when 
matter first comes into existence in some fresh state of 
combination, as, for instance, carbonate of lime combined 
with a viscid substance, it has no definite form until 
gravity has given it one. As respects the size of atoms, it 
may be observed, that as the attraction of gravitation is 
exerted upon matter directly in the ratio of the quantity, 
