212 PROPERTIES MAY EXIST WITHOUT FORCE. 



stances, as a proof of conservation of force. It is 

 needless to say the word is here used in the sense of 

 property, but the effect is unfortunate, and has quite 

 misled Bence Jones, who, in spite of the views of 

 Newton, that gravity cannot belong to the essential, 

 inherent qualities or properties of matter, because it is 

 capable of diminution, classes weight with chemical 

 "force" (property), saying that the union between 

 matter and gravity is just as inseparable as the union 

 between matter and chemical "force" (property), and 

 that matter without weight is not matter at all. This 

 is erroneous, and misleading in every particular. 

 Matter without weight is not only conceivable, but it 

 is easy to calculate the position in space where matter 

 can have no appreciable weight at all. And it is per- 

 fectly easy to conceive, although no such state exists 

 as a reality, matter totally devoid of all force, and in 

 which it would retain all its inherent qualities, or pro- 

 perties, unimpaired. The conception of matter emptied 

 of all force is not more difficult than that of the abso- 

 lute zero of heat, which is a postulate in physical 

 science. The truth is, there is no such thing as 

 chemical force at all as an inherent property, any more 

 than weight as an inherent property of matter. What 

 is meant is, that matter has an inherent capacity for 

 being moved by the respective forces indicated by 

 these terms. In the case of gravitation, the particles 

 of all kinds of matter have the same capacity for 

 being pushed towards each other by the force of gravi- 

 tation, as illustrated in Professor Challis's theory. 

 Whereas, in chemical attraction, it is in virtue of a 

 specific property in each kind of matter (possibly mere 



