364 THE CONSERVATION OF FORCE. 



hundred ; and if we suppose an elastic spring to be intro- 

 duced between the two as a measure of the attractive force, 

 the power compressing it will be a hundred times as much in 

 the latter case as in the former. But from whence can this 

 enormous increase of power come ? If we say that it is the 

 character of this force, and content ourselves with that as a 

 sufficient answer, then it appears to me we admit a creation 

 of power and that to an enormous amount ; yet by a change 

 of condition, so small and simple as to fail in leading the least 

 instructed mind to think that it can be a sufficient cause, we 

 should admit a result which would equal the highest act our 

 minds can appreciate of the working of infinite power upon 

 matter ; we should let loose the highest law in physical sci- 

 ence which our faculties permit us to perceive, namely, the 

 conservation of force. Suppose the two particles, A and B, 

 removed back to the greater distance of ten, then the force of 

 attraction would be only a hundredth part of that they pre- 

 viously possessed ; this, according to the statement that the 

 force varies inversely as the square of the distance, would 

 double the strangeness of the above results ; it would be an 

 annihilation of force an effect equal in its infinity and its 

 consequences with creation, and only within the power of Him 

 who has created. 



We have a right to view gravitation under every form that 

 either its definition or its effects can suggest to the mind ; it 

 is our privilege to do so with every force in nature ; and it is 

 only by so doing that we have succeeded, to a large extent, in 

 relating the various forms of power, so as to derive one from 

 another, and thereby obtain confirmatory evidence of the 

 great principle of the conservation of force. Then let us 

 consider the two particles, A and B, as attracting each other 

 by the force of gravitation, under another view. According 

 to the definition, the force depends upon both particles, and if 

 the particle A or B were by itself, it could not gravitate, that 

 is, it could have no attraction, no force of gravity. Suppos- 



