Force and Form. 1055 



and evolution it is a product of such forms of energy. Made up itself 

 of a combination of ponderable and imponderable matter, it is a spe- 

 cialized portion of the great universe which in whole and in part is 

 everywhere of like composition. When the reactions of the several 

 portions of a vital organism no longer support each other, there is 

 nothing to hold them together and they fall apart. But the dissolution 

 of the partnership that constitutes the organism does not involve the 

 death of the ultimate pieces. The energies that place the particles in 

 the organism with such marvelous adjustment ; that cause their actions 

 and reactions while in such combination and which finally remove them 

 these energies never rest. The molecules never die. The end of one 

 combination is the beginning of another. There is no pause nor inter- 

 regnum. But the dissociation of the particles of the organism is ac- 

 companied by that of the various forms of energy to whose aggregation 

 we give the name vitality. There is no vital force considered as a single 

 mode of motion. Vitality ends as vitality, when the organism ends as 

 an organism. 



While we cannot conceive of energy ever beginning from a state of 

 no energy either as the result of an accident or of a fiat, we readily per- 

 ceive the influence upon the details and particulars of its phenomena 

 exerted by the forms of the bodies in connection with which these phe- 

 nomena occur. The ether is admitted to be the universal vehicle for 

 the conveyance of energy between ponderable bodies not in contact 

 with each other. When one such body is in motion the force of that 

 motion is communicated to the ether, which in turn communicates it to 

 other bodies at a distance. This it may do by one of the three modes 

 of movement possible to itself, viz. , the undulatory, the pulsatory or 

 the current. The sort of motion communicated to the ether by the de- 

 livering body is such as the form of the body itself causes it to affect, 

 and the sort of motion set up in the receiving body depends upon the 

 nature of such body as to shape, size, and the qualities that determine 

 its fundamental pitch. A mode of motion or a tone that affects one 

 body will have a different effect or no effect at all on another. The re- 

 actions of the many different kinds of bodies against the thousands of 

 tones of impact possible to be delivered by the ether, together consti- 

 tute in themselves and cause in other bodies all the phenomena of mo- 

 tion we are acquainted with, each sort of motion receiving a name sig- 

 nificant of the body moved or the kind or tone of the motion. 



A gun does not furnish the force by which the bullet is driven, but 

 it is essential to the effectiveness of the force; and its form, weight, 

 position, &c. , determine the quantity of force that may be used and the 

 direction the bullet will take. Powder burnt in the open air would pro- 

 duce a very different effect. Fire-crackers, Roman candles, rockets, 



