244 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



screw which holds together large beams ; in the 

 mode of raising large blocks of granite by an 

 iron rod driven into a hole in the stone. Pro- 

 bably no greater forces are exercised in any 

 processes in the arts than the force of friction ; 

 and it is always employed to produce rest, sta- 

 bility, moderate motion. Being always ready 

 and never wearied, always at hand and augment- 

 ing with the exigency, it regulates, controls, 

 subdues all motions; counteracts all other 

 agents; and finally gains the mastery over all 

 other terrestrial agencies, however violent, fre- 

 quent, or long continued. The perpetual action 

 of all other terrestrial forces appears, on a large 

 scale, only as so many interruptions of the con- 

 stant and stationary rule of friction. 



The objects which every where surround us, 

 the books or dishes which stand on our tables, 

 our tables and chairs themselves, the loose clods 

 and stones in the field, the heaviest masses pro- 

 duced by nature or art, would be in a perpetual 

 motion, quick or slow according to the forces 

 which acted on them, and to their size, if it were 

 not for the tranquillizing and steadying effects 

 of the agent we are considering. Without this, 

 our apartments, if they kept their shape, would 

 exhibit to us articles of furniture, and of all 

 other kinds, sliding and creeping from side to 

 side at every push and every wind, like loose 

 objects in a ship's cabin, when she is changing 

 her course in a gale. 



