LAWS OF PHYSICAL FORCE. 325 



students in tlie sciences. The author quoted frankly states 

 that the dogmas he expounds " seem not quite so clear to 

 the unscientific mind."" 



Considering that this city is so widely distinguished for 

 its practical application of the mechanical and chemical 

 sciences^ it would reflect much discredit on the community 

 for us to be unable to comprehend the simple elements of 

 the natural forces^ so largely guided by our hands. Hence 

 a few words seem called for, to distinguish the several 

 forces acting conjointly or separately, and to protest 

 against their being confounded together as an abstract 

 entity to be conservated. 



There seems no ground for asserting any new discoveries 

 relating to the natural forces ; yet a boundless field lies 

 before us for new applications of those forces to the ever 

 expanding and varying uses of man. 



In addition to the before-mentioned fallacies, of including 

 all physical forces under one head, and treating them as 

 an abstract entity, it is assumed by the new philosophy 

 that vast mechanical forces are continually exerted by 

 special natural agencies, which hitherto have not been 

 known to exert or to possess this kind of force in any de- 

 gree. To sustain this assumption, its authors have not 

 been able to adduce any facts, or even analogies, in known 

 phenomena, to prove or render probable the exertion of 

 such forces, as, for instance, the alleged mechanical forces 

 of the solar rays when they are intercepted by aqueous 

 vapour in the air, and the like forces assumed to be in 

 continuous action by and among the agitated atoms and 

 molecules or the ultimate particles of tangible bodies, and 

 thus, by their internal motions, tending to change or to 

 restore their sizes and forms when the bodies are altered 

 in either by external forces. Now, considering that such 

 ultimate particles, called " atoms '^ and " molecules," are 

 not discoverable by any analysis or known mutations 



