PHYSIOLOGY OF LIFE. 55 



We have been thus full and express on this subject, 

 because these simple ideas of time, space, and motion ; of 

 length, breadth, and depth, are not only the simplest and 

 universal, but the necessary symbols of all philosophic 

 construction. They will be found the primary factors and 

 elementary forms of every calculus and of every diagram 

 in the algebra and geometry of a scientific physiology. 

 Accordingly, we shall recognise the same forms under 

 other names; but at each return more specific and in- 

 tense; and the whole process repeated with ascending 

 gradations of reality, exempli gratia : Time -j- space 

 = motion ; Tm -f- space = line + breadth = depth ; 

 depth -|- motion = force; L/ -|- B/ = D/; LD/ -f- 

 BD/= attraction -f- repulsion = gravitation; and so 

 on, even till they pass into outward phenomena, and form 

 the intermediate link between productive powers and fixed 

 products in light, heat, and electricity. If we pass to the 

 construction of matter, we find it as the product, or 

 tertium aliud, of antagonist powers of repulsion and 

 attraction. Remove these powers, and the conception of 

 matter vanishes into space conceive repulsion only, and 

 you have the same result. For infinite repulsion, uncoun- 

 teracted and alone, is tantamount to infinite, dimension- 

 less diffusion, and this again to infinite weakness ; viz., 

 to space. Conceive attraction alone, and as an infinite 

 contraction, its product amounts to the absolute point, 

 viz., to time. Conceive the synthesis of both, and you 

 have matter as a fluxional antecedent, which, in the very 

 act of formation, passes into body by its gravity, and yet 

 in all bodies it still remains as their mass, which, being 

 exclusively calculable under the law of gravitation, gives 



