280 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 



exerted by the finger in bending the prong cannot disappear. 

 Under what form then does it exist? It exists under the 

 form of that cohesive tension which it has generated among 

 the particles. This cohesive tension cannot cease without an 

 equivalent result. What is its equivalent result? The 

 momentum generated in the prong while being carried back 

 to its position of rest. This momentum too — what becomes 

 of it? It must either continue as momentum, or produce 

 some correlative force of equal amount. It cannot continue 

 as momentum, since change of place is resisted by the cohe- 

 sion of the parts; and thus it gradually disappears by being 

 transformed into tension among these parts. This is re- 

 transformed into the equivalent momentum ; and so on con- 

 tinuously. If instead of motion that is directly 

 antagonized by the cohesion of matter, we consider motion 

 through space, the same truth presents itself under another 

 form. Though here no opposing force seems at work, and 

 therefore no cause of rhythm is apparent, yet its own accu- 

 mulated momentum must eventually carry the moving body 

 beyond the body attracting it ; and so must become a force at 

 variance with that which generated it. From this conflict, 

 rhythm necessarily results as in the foregoing case. The 

 force embodied as momentum in a given direction, cannot be 

 destroyed; and if it eventually disappears, it re-appears in 

 the reaction on the retarding body; which begins afresh to 

 draw the now arrested mass back from its aphelion. The 

 only conditions under which there could be absence of 

 rhythm — the only conditions, that is, under which there 

 could be a continuous motion through space in the same 

 straight line for ever, would be the existence of an infinity 

 void of everything but the moving body. And neither of 

 these conditions can be represented in thought. Infinity is 

 inconceivable; and so also is a motion which never had a 

 commencement in some pre-existing source of power. 



Thus, then, rhythm is a necessary characteristic of all 

 motion. Given the co-existence everywhere of antagonist 



