GRAVITY AND LEV1T\ 



light, because it is rare ; and that it excites 

 flavor and odor in sentient beings, because it is 

 motive. Gravity and levity, therefore are terms 

 which are employed to express the relative 

 degrees of difference which exist in the quanti- 

 ties of matter, contained by different bodies, 

 within the same magnitudes ; and as the levity, 

 or the gravity the rising, or the falling, which 

 is in consequence produced, is entirely limi- 

 ted and confined to the medium alone; I 

 contend, that to ascribe those effects to other 

 causes, and more especially to the energy of 

 powers, residing in bodies, which are situated 

 at distances, the most remote from each other 

 that can be conceived acting where they are 

 not is not only a violation of every principle 

 of legitimate inquiry, but of the first rules of 

 philosophising, adopted and recommended by 

 the illustrious NEWTON himself; namely, that 

 no more causes of natural things are to be admit- 

 ted, than are both true and sufficient to explain 

 the phenomena. In order, however, that those 

 phenomena should be explained, from those 

 principles, it becomes absolutelynecessary, that 

 the order of nature should be inverted, and de- 

 stroyed ; instead of the matter of which this 

 world is constituted, proceeding, as it does, 

 from the most dense, to the most rare ; it ought 

 to proceed from the most rare, to the most 

 dense; the solid base ought to occupy the 



