Matter and Motion. 19 



are composed of are found subject to 

 some others, which have but lately been 

 noticed,, and are even yet imperfectly 

 known 8 Newton himself, to whose hap- 

 py penetration we owe the hint, limits 

 liimself with establishing that there are 

 such motions in the minima natures, and 

 that they flow from certain powers or 

 forces, not reducible to any of those in 

 the great world, and from hence he ac- 

 counts for an infinity of phenomena, oth- 

 erwise inexplicable, to which the princi- 

 ple of gravity is inadequate. Thus, adds 

 Sir Isaac, "will nature be found very 

 conformable to herself, and very simple; 

 performing all the great motions of the 

 heavenly bodies by the attraction of grav- 

 ity, which intercedes those bodies, and 

 almost all the small ones of their parts, 

 by some other attractive power diffused 

 through their particles. Without such 

 principles, there never would have been 

 any motion in the world ; and without 

 the continuance of it, motion would soon 

 perish, there being otherwise a great de- 

 crease or diminution, of it, which is only 

 supplied by these active principles." 

 By the attraction of cohesion are form- 



