ON THE ORIGIN OF FORCE. 



some upon more, others on less, cogent evidence, as 

 " modes of motion," they seem to consider($orce itself 

 as included in the same category, and think there is 

 "reason to believe that it depends on the diffusion of 

 highly-attenuated matter through space." f This doctrine 

 goes to resolve the entire assemblage of natural pheno- 

 mena into the mere knocking about of an inconceivable 

 number of inconceivably minute billiard balls (or cubes, 

 or tetrahedrons, if that be preferred), which once set in 

 motion and abandoned to their mutual encounter and 

 impact, work out the totality of natural phenomena. 

 With the amount of forethought and intelligence called 

 for in the initiatory disposal of the place and movement 

 of every individual of this multitude ; to work out for 

 countless ages the orderly sequence of observed facts, 

 by their blind conformity to the laws of collision, those 

 disposed to adopt such a view of nature would probably 

 concern themselves little. Their actual disposal at the 

 present moment is a fait accompli; and from this point 

 it would be possible, at least in imagination, if we knew 

 the present position and movement of every particle of 

 matter in the universe, to work backwards, up to any 

 epoch which we might choose to assign as that of crea- 

 tion, by a simple reversal of the velocity and direction of 

 each : nay, having thus awcreated the world, the mole- 

 cules would of themselves work out a pre-existent order 

 of things into all past eternity : an image of what might 

 have existed in the past (though it did not) seen, as is 

 were, reflected in the future. 



* North British Review, vol. xl. p. 41. 



