286 RECAPITULATION, CRITICISM, AND RECOMMENCEMENT. 



artificial and natural, organic and inorganic, which for con- 

 venience sake we distinguish, are not from the highest 

 point of view to be distinguished; for they are all changes 

 going on in the same Cosmos, and forming parts of one 

 vast transformation. The play of forces is essentially the 

 same in principle throughout the whole region explored by 

 our intelligence; and though, varying infinitely in their 

 proportions and combinations, they work out results every- 

 where more or less different, and often seeming to have no 

 kinship, yet there cannot but be among these results a 

 fundamental community. The question to be answered is 

 — what is the common element in the histories of all con- 

 crete processes? 



§ 92. To resume, then, we have now to seek a law of 

 composition of phenomena, co-extensive with those laws of 

 their components set forth in the foregoing chapters. Hav- 

 ing seen that matter is indestructible, motion continuous, 

 and force persistent — having seen that forces are every- 

 where undergoing transformation, and that motion, always 

 following the line of least resistance, is invariably rhythmic, 

 it remains to discover the similarly-invariable formula ex- 

 pressing the combined consequences of the actions thus sepa- 

 rately formulated. 



What must be the general character of such a formula? 

 It must be one that specifies the course of the changes 

 undergone by both the matter and the motion. Every 

 transformation implies re-arrangement of component parts ; 

 and a definition of it, while saying what has happened to the 

 sensible or insensible portions of substance concerned, must 

 also say what has happened to the movements, sensible or 

 insensible, which the re-arrangement of parts implies. 

 Further, unless the transformation always goes on in the 

 same way and at the same rate, the formula must specify the 

 conditions under which it commences, ceases, and is re- 

 versed. 



