GRAVITY NOT AN ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE. 277 



and indolence, or the mystical inventions of 

 fanciful theorists for impenetrable obscurities, 

 that would vanish before a bold and deter- 

 mined spirit of inquiry. Could the veil be 

 drawn aside which conceals from our inspection 

 the whole mechanism of the universe, nothing, 

 perhaps, would so much excite our astonishment 

 as its simplicity. 



From a careful review of the foregoing Chap- 

 ters, the following conclusions may be deduced: 



1. That cohesion, chemical affinity, and ca- 

 pillary attraction, are modifications of that uni- 



In opposition to this view of the subject, we are informed by 

 Dr. Arnott, that " the greater part of the phenomena of nature 

 may be referred to four elementary truths, viz. atom, attraction, 

 repulsion, and inertia." He observes, that " inertia expresses 

 the fact, that atoms, as regards motion, have a stubbornness 

 about them, which tends always to keep them in their existing 

 state, whatever it may be." (Elements of Physics, Vol. I. page 

 1 and 2.) In what way atoms have been endowed with this ima- 

 ginary property has not been explained ; nor does Dr. Arnott 

 assign the cause of attraction. Until this is done, let no man 

 flatter the world, that even the foundation of physical science 

 has been established on the solid rock of fixed principles. 



If it be true that caloric is the physical cause of attraction as 

 well as repulsion, and that cohesion and gravity are modifications 

 of the same power, it must be a primum mobile : it therefore 

 becomes the business of philosophy to investigate the mode of 

 its operation in maintaining all the molecular and aggregate 

 movements of nature. 



The connexion of caloric with the phenomena of motion has 

 been virtually recognized by all those philosophers who have 

 regarded heat and motion as identical. But it is obvious that 

 there can be no motion without an agent; consequently, that 

 they have confounded the effect with its cause. 



