220 On the'new Theory 
of rods or levers of fixed continuous matter between bodies act- 
ing on one another, to conceive that any gas, like hydrogen, can 
act by like agency. But this power of gas will be evident on 
slight consideration ; for, if a tube, or series of tubes, of ten feet — 
or a million of feet in length, were filled with hydrogen gas, and 
a plug were driven into one end, so as to require any known 
power less than the strength of the tubes to force it out; then, 
if a piston were forced with that degree of power into the other 
end, it is notorious that the rarest gas would expel the plug as 
effectually as though it were propelled by a continuous rod of 
iron. If space, therefore, be full of any light gas, or fluid suz 
generis, it is evident that such gas, in such a plenum, must act 
in continuity in filled space, as well as ina filled tube. We 
know that the gas in which we live acts thus at definite distances, 
in proportion to the closeness of the place of experiment; and 
we must not forget, that in the only situation in which a good 
experiment could be made, the effect of this continuous power 
in mere gas was very remarkable: viz. when Blanchard and 
Jeffreys crossed the Straits of Dover, they threw from their car, 
when at the elevation of two miles, an empty bottle, the fall of 
which on the water produced a sharp concussion in the car, 
thereby affording proof of the continued impulse of gas, even 
when the impulse is made in free space. The ascent of 
sound, and its propagation through distances of three or four 
hundred miles near the earth, is a further proof of such capabi- 
lity, though the vibrations of sound are not exactly of the same 
nature as the propulsion of impulse. 
Coro.tary.—This important consequence follows, that, as 
impulses in a gaseous medium must act in cones diverging from 
the moving power, so the force of the impulse must necessarily 
diminish as the squares of the distance ; the impulse from a focus 
through gas being of the nature of the impulse of light, heat, 
and all emanations, 
These are the postulata on which I propose to raise a new 
theory of the universe, without the aid of gravitation.—And on 
these bases it cannot be difficult so to combine the laws of mo- 
tion as to account for all the ordinary phenomena of the uni- 
verse. 
In such considerations, the governing principle is an exact 
fitness and harmony between causes and effect ; and these im-_ 
pose the necessity of a balance of powers. 4 lalance of powers 
requires, however, equal momenta; and equal momenta grow 
out of equal quantities of motion, on two siles of a fulcrum, 
centre, or axis. 
In Universal Nature there is no up nor down; there is no na- 
tural disposition of bodies to fall together, or to recede from onte 
another ; 
