114 LIFE IN NATURE. 



of this in the bullet or cannon ball, supposed before. 

 The gun is an instrument for giving, by a definite 

 resistance, a certain direction to motion. And so in 

 every case ; it only needs that we should not arbi- 

 trarily limit our thought, but should consent to carry 

 our eye indefinitely back. Whatever we may suppose 

 concerning the primary origination of motion, of 

 every motion which we can perceive, or conceive, 

 we must say that it is such as it is because motion 

 takes the direction of least resistance. 



And if every motion comes thus within the sphere 

 of this law, so also, when it is rightly regarded, does 

 the other fact referred to as apparently opposed to it 

 that of resistance being overcome by impulse. In 

 this, too, there is only an apparent exception to 

 the law of least resistance, and it arises likewise 

 from an arbitrary limitation of our view. Giving 

 the proposition its due extension, these cases are in- 

 stances of the law, and not exceptions to it. For 

 what is it that resists motion but force? and what 

 is force but that which, if unresisted, produces 

 motion ? It is, therefore, motion or the cause of it 

 that is the true resistance to motion: as when the 



