340 ESSAYS ann OBSERVATIONS 
thers. more firmly connected. -For fome 
time they may lie concealed without mani- 
felt motion or action; their repelling or 
elaftic power being overcome or balanced by 
the attraQlive force of the furrounding cor- 
pulcles, till by certain concurring circum- 
ftances, as external motion, heat, moifture, 
the addition of other matter, ©&c. the attra- 
tive force is diminifhed, or the repelling in- 
creafed: then they are roufed, as it were 
into ation, and difcover them{elves by great 
and remarkable effects, in changing the tex- 
ture of the maffes to which they were united. 
Such changes we daily fee happen in fermen- 
tations, putrefactions, effervefcences, foluti- 
ons, accenfions, explofions, Ge. 
THESE principles of motion in matter, are 
not the vain fictions of: men merely f{pecula- 
tive in philofophy, but evidently deduced 
from obfervations and experiments on a great 
variety of bodies in many different circum- 
ftances ;. and every one who reflects upon 
the moft ordinary occurrences in the works 
ofnature and art, wil] be convinced of the 
sexiftence of fuch caufes, and find that they 
‘are fo univerfal and unalterable, that they can 
only be referred to the firft caufe, that is, to 
the will of the Supreme Being, 
. ART. 
