CAPILLAR Y A TTRA CTION. 



for our question of this evening. Does this 

 attraction between any particle of matter in one 

 body and any particle of matter in another 

 continue to vary inversely as the square of the 

 distance, when the distance between the nearest 

 points of the two bodies is diminished to an 

 inch (Cavendish's experiment does not demon- 

 strate this, but makes it very probable), or to 

 a centimetre, or to the hundred-thousandth of a 

 centimetre, or to the hundred-millionth of a 

 centimetre ? Now I dip my finger into this 

 basin of water ; you see proved a force of attrac- 

 tion between the finger and the drop hanging 

 from it, and between the matter on the two sides 

 of any horizontal plane you like to imagine 

 through the hanging water. These forces are 

 millions of times greater than what you would 

 calculate from the Newtonian law, on the supposi- 

 tion that water is perfectly homogeneous. Hence 

 either these forces of attraction must, at very 

 small distances, increase enormously more rapidly 

 than according to the Newtonian law, or the 

 substance of water is not homogeneous. We now 



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