XXXIT PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
Grand Cafion of the Colorado. Some of the young men were 
amusing themselves by trying to throw stones across a lateral gorge. 
No one could accomplish the feat, though they could throw stones 
even farther, as they believed, along the level land. Chuar, the 
chief, explained this to me by informing me that the cafion pulled 
the stones down. The apparent proximity of the opposite wall was 
believed to be actual, and vacuity was personified and believed to 
exert a force. ; 
: Metaphysic explanations of gravity are found. By that method 
an absolute up and down is predicated, and bodies have a tendency 
to fall down. This is an explanation in words, the words expressing 
no meaning but believed to be themselves thoughts. It is per- 
haps the earliest form of the metaphysic explanation of gravity. 
But with the progress of knowledge the absolute disappears, and 
positions are found to be but relative ; there is no absolute up and 
down; and other facts with regard to gravity are discovered. And 
finally the metaphysician says bodies attract. Now the term fall, 
as used by the early metaphysicians, was the name of a motion 
observed, and it was held to be a complete explanation as long as 
up and down was supposed to be absolute, not relative; and the 
explanation was abandoned as insufficient when the ideas of abso- 
lute up and down were abandoned. But the word attraction does 
not involve this error. It is simply a name for the phenomenon, 
without the manifestly fallacious implication of “‘up and down.” 
And it is a good name for the specific phenomenon to which it is 
applied. But it must not connotate any other idea; in so far as 
it does, it is vitiated. Yet the metaphysician will suppose that by 
using the term “attraction” he explains gravity. The scientific 
philosopher uses the term purely as the name of the phenomenon, 
and does not suppose that thereby the phenomenon is explained ; 
and having named it, he still seeks for its explanation—that is, he 
still seeks to resolve that which is manifestly a complex phenom- 
enon, exhibited in the relations of positions of bodies, into its most 
simple elements. Whenever this is done he will say that attraction, 
or gravity—they being synonyms for the same phenomenon—is 
explained. 
The kinematist uses “attraction” asasynonym for “ gravitation.” 
The dynamist uses “attraction” as a verbal explanation of Gravi- 
tation. The mythic philosopher uses the term to connotate the still 
further idea that bodies exert a “ pull” on one another; and this 
