464 ON THE ORIGIN OF FORCE. 



(4.) This simplification (if such it be) of our view of 

 material action is altogether untenable ; nor will it be 

 difficult, I think (and certainly not superfluous), to show 

 that such an arrangement must of necessity be rapidly 

 self- destructive, and must result in the gradual but 

 speedy dying away of all relative motion, and the reduc- 

 tion of the universe either to a single block of matter 

 moving uniformly on, for ever, in one direction, without 

 relative motion of its parts ; or else in the dispersion into 

 space, and absolute final dissociation of its molecules. 



(5.) For, be it observed, force (except in the sense of 

 bodily .extrusion) being non-existent, our billiard-balls 

 must of necessity be supposed inelastic. Elasticity im- 

 plies force. If this be disallowed, if elasticity be not 

 force, but collision, each billiard-ball (each ultimate 

 atom, that is to say) must be itself a universe in miniature 

 composed of other more minute ones, moving and collid- 

 ing, inter se to give them that resilience which we term 

 elasticity, but which, in this view of the matter, is nothing 

 but "clash." Now what is to prevent these ultimate 

 atoms of the second order, animated with velocities im- 

 mense, as compared with their mutual distances, coercea 

 by no mutual attractions, subject to no control but from 

 their mutual collisions ; from dispersing themselves out 

 in all directions into space and abdicating their functions 

 as a group? If we waive this objection (which, how- 

 ever, is fatal) nothing is gained. The original objection 

 applies in its full force to these sub-atoms, and so on ad 

 injinitum. 



(6.) Now, in the collision of inelastic bodies, vis viva 



