CHAPTER VII. 

 The Secondary Laws of Energy. 



Section I. Gravitation. 



According to present science, the chief forces of 

 nature are three : — Gravity, Cohesion, and Chemical 

 Attraction ; but they owe this pre-eminence simply to 

 the fact that their causes have not been discovered. 

 Hence, if we can attribute their origin to our Primary 

 Laws, they must retire into the background. 



As gravitation, in the first place, virtually comprises 

 two distinct laws, we shall discuss these separately. 



(a) The General Law of Gravitation ; 



" Gravitation is a general law of nature, whereby 

 every material substance tends to approach or gravitate 

 towards every other material substance ; in fact, that 

 any two portions of matter, whatever the nature of that 

 matter may be, will move toward one another if there 



nothing to prevent them doing so." 



This law, Huxley says, has been "established from 

 an immense number of careful observations and ex- 

 periments " — observations and experiments misread, 



