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_ Viously, as the 
‘the 
266 Scientific I niclligenss. 
At present we are accustomed to admit action at sensible distances, as 
of one magnet upon another, or of the sun upon the earth, as if suc 
admission were itself a perfect answer to any enquiry into the nature 
of the physical means which cause distant bodies to affect each other; 
and the man who hesitates to admit the sufficiency of the answer, or of 
the assumption on which it rests, and asks for a more satisfactory ac- 
count, runs some risk of appearing ridiculous or ignorant before the 
world of science. Yet Newton, who did more than any other man in 
demonstrating the law of action of distant bodies, including amongst 
such the sun and Saturn, which are nine hundred millions of miles 
apart, did not leave the subject’ without recording his well-considered 
judgment, that the mere attraction of distant portions of matter was 
not a sufficient or satisfactory thought for a philosopher. That gravity 
should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body 
may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the me- 
diation of anything else, by and through which their action and force 
may be conveyed from one to another, is, he says, to him a great ab- 
inal | 
of the conservation and indestructibility of force. 
sun as our earth is ;—the attraction of gravity is then exerted, and we 
say that the sun attracts the earth, and, also, that the earth attracts the 
sun. But if the sun attracts the earth, that force of attraction must 
should be able to raise up in the sun a power havirlg no previous exist- 
ence. As respects gravity, the earth must be considered as inert, pre” 
man the sun over it: both are assumed to be without 
ie beginning of the case ;—how then can that power arise 
; 
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