NATURAL THEOLOGY. 29 



There is, I know, an account given of attrac- 

 tion, which should seem, in its very cause, to as- 

 sign to it the law which we find it to observe ; 

 and which, therefore, makes that law, a law, not 

 of choice, but of necessity ; and it is the account 

 which ascribes attraction to an emanation from 

 the attracting body. It is probable, that the in- 

 fluence of such an emanation will be proportioned 

 to the spissitude of the rays of which it is com- 

 posed ; which spissitude, supposing the rays to 

 issue in right lines on all sides from a point, will 

 be reciprocally as the square of the distance. The 

 mathematics of this solution we do not call in 

 question: the question with us is, whether there 

 be any sufficient reason for believing that attrac- 

 tion is produced by an emanation. For my part, 

 I am totally at a loss to comprehend how parti- 

 cles streaming from a centre should draw a body 

 towards it. The impulse, if impulse it be, is all 

 the other way. Nor shall we find less difficulty 

 in conceiving a conflux of particles, incessantly 

 flowing to a centre, and carrying down all bodies 

 along with it, that centre also itself being in a 



inverse duplicate ratio ; though an important position maybe thus 

 gained or granted in Natural Philosophy, nothing whatever is ef- 

 fected in Natural Theology ; for the same powrer which endowed 

 matter with those qualities from whence this peculiar kind of at- 

 tractive force results, is only proved to have created that attractive 

 force and bestowed it upon matter mediately instead of immediate- 

 ly. This, in short, is only another instance of the argument for- 

 merly adverted to under the head of " Instinct," Chap, xviii., and 

 v'hich we there stated to be of general application. 



4* 



