A RATIONAL COSMOGONY 143 



lie and his followers have apparently been unable to 

 utilize it save as a destroyer of motion : first, by tieing 

 the planets to prescribed orbits, second, by xtonpiny 

 axial rotations through tidal friction, and, third, by 

 annihilating ntolcenJar energy coiiicidently with the 

 agglomeration of matter into planetary bodies! Is it 

 any wonder, then, that science has doomed the universe 

 to bankruptcy? 



(JllAVITATION AS A CONSTRUCTIVE FORCE 



Now, when gravitation entered into matter, it made 

 of every particle of it a permanent magnet, unchange- 

 able, imperishable, and obedient to an unswerving law. 

 This means, first, that whether a given body be hot or 

 cold; gaseous, solid, or liquid; separate or in combina- 

 tion with something else, its inherent power to attract 

 and be attracted by others remains identically the same. 

 It means, second, that, unlike all other forces, it may 

 be and is constantly being drawn upon and exercised, 

 but like the widow's cruise stays always evenly full. 

 It needs not to be restored, nor rested, nor fed, nor fos- 

 tered. Every instant it is created afresh. The gravita- 

 tional energy put forth by matter today is not the same 

 as that of yesterday. It had no existence yesterday, 

 whether as gravitation, or heat, or any other kind of 

 force. It is boin<> expended from instant to instant 

 without depletion of itself, and without drawing upon 

 anything else. If there be any truth in the law of the 

 conservation of energy, the total store of energy in the 

 universe is not decreasing but, on the contrary, is in- 

 creasing exactly by the quantity of gravitational force 

 momently put forth. Third, the force of gravitation 

 is, in a way, multiple. The earth, for instance, attracts 

 the sun no more nor less than it would were the moon 

 out of the way, yet it attracts that body too, not to 



