414 LAWS OF MOTION. 



It is demonstrable, that if the agent is fi- 

 nite, the motion on another body, which that 

 agent produces, must be finite also, because a 

 finite power cannot produce an effect which is 

 infinite. If all the metal which has ever been 

 separated from the bowels of the earth, were 

 fused and formed into one gun ; if all the gun- 

 powder which had ever been manufactured, 

 were rammed into it; if all the balls that have 

 ever been made, were melted into one, and 

 placed upon the powder ; however grand and 

 terrific the explosion might be ; however far 

 the ball might be projected, such is the resist- 

 ance alone, which would be opposed by the 

 ball (or the body moved) to the repulsive power 

 of the gunpowder, that its energy would be 

 progressively diminished, and be ultimately 

 destroyed ; and as a natural consequence of 

 the loss of this energy in the moving power, the 

 body which had been moved by it, would gra- 

 dually verge from motion to rest, and ultimately 

 become passive and inert. 



I would, therefore, call on those who are 

 disposed to defend this double proposition, to 

 point out to me, not only where space without 

 matter is known to exist ; and matter without 

 resistance; but the finite power which can 

 produce an infinite effect, an effect which 

 would, in such a case, not only be different 

 but better than the cause, whose motion would 



