COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



hemispheres; nor can we imagine a cohesive 

 tenacity so great that it might not be overcome 

 by some still greater disruptive force such as we 

 can equally well imagine. 



When we contemplate the mode in which 

 one particle of matter acts upon the adjacent 

 particles by attractive and repulsive forces, we 

 find ourselves equally puzzled. As Mr. Spen- 

 cer well observes, " Matter cannot be conceived 

 except as manifesting forces of attraction and 

 repulsion. Body is distinguished in our con- 

 sciousness from space, by its opposition to our 

 muscular energies ; and this opposition we feel 

 under the twofold form of a cohesion that hin- 

 ders our efforts to rend, and a resistance that 

 hinders our efforts to compress. Without re- 

 sistance there can be merely empty extension. 

 Without cohesion there can be no resistance. 

 Thus we are obliged to think of all objects as 

 made up of parts that attract and repel each 

 other ; since this is the form of our experience 

 of all objects. Nevertheless, however verbally 

 intelligible may be the proposition that pressure 

 and tension everywhere coexist, yet we cannot 

 truly represent to ourselves one ultimate unit 

 of matter as drawing another while resisting it." 



Nor is this the last of the difficulties which 

 encumber our hypothesis of mutually attracting 

 and repeUing particles separated by tracts of un- 

 occupied space. For this hypothesis requires us 



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