GRAVISTATIC HEAT 285 



accumulated store of energy? If so, how comes it that 

 this store has not already exhausted itself in the eons 

 past? How comes it that there has not been during as- 

 tronomical history even the slightest evidence of the de- 

 pletion of this strange power! It ought to be plain to 

 every thinking mind that gravitation is creative in its 

 nature, creative because matter is dynamical in essence. 

 By some strange quirk the scientists have excogi- 

 tated the lunacy that when a weight comes to rest upon 

 the ground, gravity is done for, that its energy ceases. 

 They reason thus because they have trained themselves 

 to confound the idea of space with the antithetical idea of 

 power; in fact they actually identify these two diverse 

 things in their processes of ratiocination. Let me ask, 

 what is it that moves the train the locomotive, or the 

 track? The locomotive, of course. Now what is it that 

 causes the apple to fall from the tree gravity, or the 

 free space between the twig and the ground? Gravity, 

 of course. Does gravity, then, act on the apple only 

 while the latter is in the state of falling, or did it not also 

 pull on it while it was yet on the tree, and will it not con- 

 tinue to pull upon it forever, after it has found a perman- 

 ent resting place on the earth? I expect you to answer in 

 the affirmative. We all agree, then, I trust, that the ef- 

 fective cause for the fall that has taken place is not so 

 many feet of bare space, but gravity, be gravity what it 

 may. Now gravity has this peculiar property, that it 

 waxes with exertion, not wanes ; that is to say, its force 

 increases indefinitely with the shortening of the distance. 

 The attraction upon the apple when lying on the ground 

 is therefore stronger than when it still clung to the tree, 

 stronger than when it was in the act of falling, stronger 

 than at any time in the past. Yet the Conservationists 

 say, in effect: 



"Given this force known to be capable of producing 

 a specific mechanical result, then if the same be increased 

 to a maximum and so maintained indefinitely, its effects 

 will altogether cease and disappear, nor will any other 

 sort of mechanical consequences appear in their place !" 



