238 _ E. B. Hunt on the Nature of Forces. 
either an increase or diminution of the aggregate agency, as con- 
sequent on mere transmission through space. But it is clear that 
mere transmission is totally incapable in itself of affecting in the 
slightest degree the quantity of action originally put forth from 
the centre. Mere change of place cannot, by its very nature, be 
a producing or destroying cause. ‘The inertia, the structure, the 
imperfect elasticity of the transmitting medium, may produce a 
ecay of transmitted action, as in the case of light in an imper- 
fect medium or of heat in air; but mere transmission as such, is 
as wholly powerless to destroy as it is to create action. 
he more clearly to perceive that unresisted central emanation 
necessarily gives the Newtonian law, let us conceive a centre 
from which action of any kind issues or emanates by rectilinear 
radiation. Each ray throughout its entire length is the represen- 
tative of the same quantity of action. Now if we suppose ele- 
mentary concentric spheres around this origin as a centre, each 
sphere is pierced by all the rays and hence all the spheres become 
loci of the same amount of total agency in a given time. If the 
emanation or radiation be supposed uniform in all directions, then 
the total intensity of action on each unit of surface for any pat 
ticular sphere, is inversely as its total surface, which is as the 
square of the distance of transmission. Hence the action ona 
given surface, or a given constant mass, is inversely as the square 
of the distance of transmission. Or, instead of rays, we ma 
suppose the emanation to proceed by spherical undulations, where 
ted emanation, the law being indeed but a simple assertion that 
ward propagation or that translation through space, neither makes 
nor destroys light, heat, force, &c. The same facts in a negativé 
order would characterize a central absorption of agency- 
ince free emanation thus leads to the Newtonian law as 4 2& 
cessity, the reverse question arises: whether the existence of the 
Newtonian law does not of necessity involve emanation? It 
positive proof of it; for we can suppose the exact geometrical 
system of dynamic agency which emanation produces, t0 be . 
the original creation and constitution of matter, embodied in a0 
identical static form. For instance, we may suppose an atom $0 
constituted as to fill with its actual and organic self all the space 
to which its force action would extend, and thus to have every 
where a potentiality identical with that resulting from true ema 
nation. his hypothesis literally makes each atom fill all spaces 
and all atoms actually to coexist in each point of the univers’ 
Thus too, if one atom be moved by its centre, it must evely 
