274 IMPERFECT STATE OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



It has been repeated a thousand times, that by 

 reducing the phenomena of gravitation to a ge- 

 neral law, Sir I. Newton had revealed the whole 

 mechanism of the universe. But he entertained 

 a far more accurate estimate of what he had 

 done, when he compared himself to " a little boy 

 collecting a few choice pebbles and shells on the 

 sea shore ; while the great ocean of truth lay all 

 undiscovered before him." 



When he resolved the aggregation of planets 

 into the action of their minutest particles, he left 

 his followers in doubt whether gravitation was a 

 primary agent, or only an expression of the mode 

 in which some universal cause is observed to 

 operate inversely as the squares of the distance ; 

 and whether it resulted from the pressure of an all 

 pervading aether, or from the inherent properties 

 of elementary atoms. (See Opticks, p. 351.) 



globe is constant, an equal amount of caloric must be annually 

 radiated into the planetary spaces. Nay, it is highly probable, 

 that if the temperature of space could be reduced 1000 F. below 

 the minimum of the earth's surface, it would still be an exhaust- 

 less ocean of sethereal matter ; for it is impossible to conceive the 

 total absence of heat. Under all circumstances, it is perpetually 

 radiated from the sun and fixed stars throughout the boundless 

 regions of space. 



In a more advanced condition of human knowledge, it will 

 become an object of inquiry, in what way the movements of the 

 heavenly bodies are connected with this omnipresent aether, 

 which is radiated from the sun to the planets, and reflected from 

 planets to their satellites, and actuates every atom of which 

 they are composed. 



