172 GRAVITY AN EFFECT. 



referred the phenomena of heat, electricity, light, 

 evaporation, and combustion, together with all 

 the diversified transformations of matter. 



If the atoms of ponderable matter were wholly 

 deprived of this principle, they would no longer 

 be capable of attracting and repelling each other ; 

 consequently, there could be no cohesion, and 

 if cohesion be only a modification of universal 

 attraction, it is idle to regard gravitation as the 

 first of secondary causes, from which all the 

 phenomena of motion may be deduced ; while 

 it is only an expression of the general fact, that 

 bodies tend towards each other with forces which 

 vary inversely as the distance. When the vacuum 

 of space, and the projectile force of planets, on 

 which the Newtonian theory was originally 

 founded, shall have sunk into oblivion ; the 

 above fact will remain a monument of lofty gene- 

 ralization until time shall be no more. 



It was by confounding the external world with 

 the impressions which it produces on the senses, 

 that Berkeley was led to resolve the universe of 

 matter into mind or spirit. The mathematical 

 theory of Boscovich before noticed, is equally 

 beyond the power of human comprehension. In 

 the same spirit of metaphysical subtlety, the 

 celebrated Kant denied the existence of ultimate 

 atoms, by assuming that they were without 

 extension or solidity : while he resolved heat, 

 light, electricity, and magnetism, into the power 



