CHARLES B ABB AGE. ] 95 



Tlie waves of air tbus raised perambulate the earth and the ocean's 

 surface, and in less than twenty hours every atom of its atmosphere 

 takes up the altered movement due to that infinitesimal portion of the 

 primitive motion which has been conveyed to it through countless 

 channels, and which must continue to influence its path throughout its '' 

 future existence.* 



But these aerial pulses, unseen by the keenest eye, unheard by the 

 acutest ear, unperceived by human senses, are yet demonstrated to 

 exist by human reason ; and, in some few and limited instances, by call- 

 ing to our aid the most refined and comprehensive instrument of human 

 thought, tlicir courses are traced and their intensities are measured. 

 If man enjoTed a larger command over mathematical analysis, his knowl- 

 edge of these motions would be more extensive ; but a being possessed 

 of unbounded knowledge of that science couid trace every the minutest 

 consequence of that primary impulse. Such a being, however far 

 exalted above our race, would still be immeasurably below even oar 

 conception of infinite intelligence. 



But supposing the original conditions of each atom of the earth's 

 atmosphere, as well as all the extraneous causes acting on it, to be given, 

 and supposing also the interference of no new causes, such a being 

 would be able clearly to trace its future but inevitable patn, and he 

 would distinctly foresee and might absolutely predict for any, even the 

 remotest period of time,t the circumstances and future history of every 

 particle of that atmosphere. 



Let us imagine a being, invested with such knowledge, to examine at 

 a distant epoch the coincidence of the facts with those which his pro- 

 found analysis had enabled him to predict. If any the slightest devia- 

 tion existed, he would immediately read in its existence the action of a 

 new uause; and, through the aid of the same analysis, tracing this dis- 

 cordance back to its source, he would become aware of the time of its 

 commencement and the point of space at which it oiiginated. 



Thus considered, what a strange chaos is this wide atmosphere we 

 breathe ! Every atom, impressed with good and with ill, retains at 

 once the motions which philosophers and sages have imparted to it, 

 mixed and combined in ten thousand ways with all that is worthless 

 and base. The air itself is one vast library, on whose j)ages are forever 

 written all that man has ever said or woman whispcL cd. There, in their 

 mutable but unerring characters, mixed with the earliest as well as with 

 the latest sighs of mortality, stand forever recorded, vows unredeemed, 

 promises unfulfilled, perpetiuating in the united movements of each 

 particle, the testimony of man's changeful will. 



But if the air we breathe is the never-failing historian of the sentiments 



* "La courbe ddcrite par une simple mol6cule d'air ou vapeurs est T4g\6e d'une mani^re 

 aussi certaiu que les orbites plan^taires ; il n'y a de diif6reiice entre elles que celle 

 qu'y met notre ignorance." — La Place, Theorie Analijtique des prohaMUtes, introduction, 

 p. iv. 



t See note C in the Appendix. 



