162 DOCTRINE OF THE ANCIENTS. 



losophers and poets, by the elder Cupid, or prin- 

 ciple of love ; that it was the primitive cause of 

 force, or the moving power of elementary atoms, 

 which formed and organized the universe of things 

 out of chaos. He adds, by way of commentary 

 on this ancient allegory, that " there is doubtless 

 a primary and universal law of nature, which re- 

 gulates the circular revolutions of the celestial 

 bodies, and to which are owing all contraction 

 and expansion of matter." 



In the third book of his treatise on the Ad- 

 vancement of Learning, he says, that whoever 

 shall attentively observe the appetences of matter, 

 shall receive clear information concerning ce- 

 lestial objects from things which are constantly 

 seen around us; and that it is the object of 

 science not only to ascertain the number, situ- 

 ations, and periodic motions of the heavenly 

 bodies, but the physical cause of their mutual 

 action upon each other, which he terms living' 

 astronomy, to distinguish it from that which is 

 vulgar and empirical. 



It was also maintained by Newton, that all 

 the phenomena of nature are resolvable into 

 attraction and repulsion, which he referred to 

 the agency of an all pervading cethereal substance, 

 capable of contraction and dilatation, that this 

 cether preserves the particles of the atmosphere and 

 all gaseous bodies at a distance from each other. 

 But, as it is now demonstrable, that caloric alone 

 is the cause of expansion and the elastic force of 



