278 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 



versal force by which planets and all other bodies 

 are held together : 



2. That the particles of all bodies are sur- 

 rounded by, and intimately combined with an 

 exceedingly subtile, active, and mobile prin- 

 ciple, which in certain proportions holds them 

 together, but in larger proportions separates or 

 decomposes them : 



3. That the prevalent theory of physics which 

 ascribes the phenomena of attraction to the in- 

 herent, or immaterial properties of ponderable 

 matter, is fallacious, and wholly unsupported by 

 evidence : 



4. That there is no such thing as a perfect 

 vacuum in nature ; neither in the pores of bodies, 

 nor in those widely extended pores of the uni- 

 verse, termed the planetary spaces: 



5. That the inertia of matter is a philosophical 

 fiction, because there is nothing quiescent in 

 nature, or which possesses the poiver of not act- 

 ing neither in the starry heavens, nor in the 

 frame of the earth. The sun revolves on his 

 axis, and planets around the sun. The air, the 

 ocean, and the solid ground are for ever in motion. 

 The molecules of plants and animals are in a 

 state of rapid circulation and change. Yea, the 

 invisible atoms of inorganic matter are in a state 

 of perpetual oscillation and transformation: 



6. That the " unknown hypothetical aether" 

 of Sir I. Newton is identical with a true phy- 



