AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 179 



Thus, the force-centers of a given group come to 

 acquire more and more rigid relations, one with an- 

 other, until they at length take on a definite form, 

 and offer greater or less resistance to any and all 

 forces tending to change that form. That is, what 

 primarily is but lax gravitative energy, becomes more 

 and more intense, until at length it develops into cohe- 

 sive force. 



But now, when there comes to be applied to such rigid 

 aggregate of force-centers another group of force-rela- 

 tions sufficient to overcome its cohesion, then the molec- 

 ular strain is developed to a correspondingly high degree. 

 But whether the applied force bears the character of 

 compression, or of percussion, it is in either case due to, 

 or is a form of, gravitative energy or attraction. And if 

 the application takes place suddenly that is, if the quan- 

 tity of force in action be mainly intensive then the 

 motion imparted to the molecules of the given body will 

 be so great that their impact upon one another must have 

 the effect to widen the distances between them in greater 

 or less degree, and thus to correspondingly increase the 

 volume of the groups as a whole. 



The result of the attraction, then, in such case, is, 

 first, percussion of one body against another, and through 

 this the sudden enhancement of the motion of the force- 

 centers constituting the bodies, so that the bodies them- 

 selves increase in volume through the energy thus 

 imparted to their molecules. That is, molar motion, 

 due to gravity, results in percussion of the moving 

 bodies, which in turn gives rise to molecular motion, and 

 this again results in increased intensity of percussion of 

 molecules, causing the expansion of the bodies. 



