18 COHESION* AND GRAVITATION. 



Epicurus, or the astrological dream of the sympathies of 

 matter.* 



Science, however, enables us to infer with safety that 

 the mechanical powers which regulate the constitution 

 of a cube of marble, or a granite mountain, are of a 

 similar order to those which determine the earth's re- 

 lation to the other planets in the solar system, and that 

 solar system itself a unit, in the immensity of space, to 

 the myriads of suns whicli spangle the stellar vault. 



In fine, cohesion, or the attraction of aggregation, is 

 a power employed in binding particle to particle. To 

 cohesion, we find we have heat opposed as a repellent 

 force ; and the mysterious operations of those electrical 

 phenomena, generally referred to as polar forces, are 

 constantly, it is certain, interfering with its powers. In 

 addition, we have seen that in nature there exists an 

 agency which is capable of changing the constitution of 

 the ultimate atoms, and of thus giving variety to each 

 resulting mass. What this power may be, our seience 



* " The atomic philosophy of Epicurus, in its mere physical 

 contemplation, allows of nothing but matter and' space, which are 

 equally infinite and unbounded, which have equally existed from 

 all eternity, and from different combinations of which every 

 visible form is created. These elementary principles have no 

 common property with each other: for whatever matter is, that 

 space is the reverse of; and whatever space is, matter is the con- 

 trary to. The actual solid part of all bodies, therefore, are matter, 

 their actual pores space, and the parts which are not altogether 

 solid, but an intermixture of solidity and pore, are space and 

 matter combined. 



" The infinite groups of atoms, flying through all time and 

 space in different directions and under different laws, have inter- 

 changeably tried and exhibited every possible mode of rencoun- 

 ter : sometimes repelled from each other by concussion, and 

 sometimes adhering to each other from their own jagged or 

 pointed construction, or from the casual interstices which two or 

 more connected atoms must produce, and which may be just 

 adapted to those of other figures, as globular, oval, or square. 

 Hence the origin of compound and visible bodies; hence the 

 origin of large masses of matter ; hence, eventually, the origin of 

 the world itself." Dr. Good's Foci- of Nature. 



