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SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



July 20, ll 



light. It would not hide other objects unless its own 

 energy were sufficient to overpower the energy of 

 luminous radiation. 



The idea of such a body is of course a paradox, but 

 why ? Simply because our natural and necessary idea 

 of an existing thing involves fundamentally the idea 

 of seme inherent energies, i.e. properties, in such 

 entity. 



Long ago Torricelli said, " La materia altro non e che 

 un vaso di Circe incantato, il quale serve per ricettacolo 

 della forza " — " Matter is nothing more than an enchanted 

 cup of Circe serving as the receptacle of force." He thus 

 located force within matter itself, but I go further, and 

 maintain that matter and force are inseparable — for aught 

 we know, identical. 



All matter is in motion or striving to move. The 

 chair on which I sit is moving with the earth in its rota- 

 tion and revolution and flight with the sun through 

 space, and is at the same time striving to move towards 

 the earth's centre, and would do it, but for the active re- 

 sistance of the earth's cohesive energy. 



If you strike a man, and he retaliates with equal 

 force, you cannot describe him as inert. In like manner 

 I regard Newton's axiom, that action and reaction are 

 always equal and contrary, as a description of the univer- 

 sal pugnacious activity of every form of matter. 



To further illustrate this, let us take ■in imaginary 

 case. Let us suppose the earth to be perforated by a 

 tubular tunnel, going through from any part of its surface 

 to its centre of gravity and on to the antipodes. Let us 

 suppose this tube to be a vacuum. What would happen 

 if a ball of any material were dropped from one end of 

 the tube in such position that it should not come in 

 contact with the sides in the course of its falling through ? 

 It would descend with accelerated velocity until it 

 reached the centre ; the velocity there acquired would be 

 just sufficient to throw it up to the antipodean surface on 

 the other side of the earth. At the surface it would 

 stop for an instant, then fall back, and go on again to its 

 starting place. This reciprocating journey would con- 

 tinue eternally, and the whole motive force producing 

 such perpetual motion being the inherent activity of the 

 matter of the earth and that of the travelling ball, i.e., 

 their gravitating energies, the invariability and inde- 

 structibility of which is shown, as Stewart says, by "our 

 balance with a certainty that it will not play us 

 false." 



In this case we have molar motion of enormous 

 velocity, both created and arrested without any loss or 

 increase of temperature whatever. 



Before leaving this subject, I must correct a common 

 error, viz., that of assuming that the doctrine of the con- 

 servation of energy is a modern innovation (see Balfour 

 Stewart, Nature, vol. i., p. 647). Leibnitz, who was a 

 contemporary of Newton, in a letter to Dr. S. Clarke, 

 says : " I have maintained the conservation of active forces 

 in the world. It was objected to this that two soft, non- 

 elastic bodies, on meeting, lose some of their force. I 

 answer no. It is true that the masses lose it, as to their 

 entire movement, but their particles receive it, being 

 internally agitated by the force of the meeting. Thus 

 the loss is only in appearance. The forces are not lost, 

 but only dissipated among the small particles. Now 

 this is not to be lost, but to act as those do who change 

 a piece of money into small coin." 



No modern writer has enunciated the doctrine more 

 c oncisely and clearly than this. 



TENNYSON AS A NATURALIST. 



'T'ENNYSON is our English Theocritus. It would be 

 bold to claim that he has excelled the Sicilian 

 idyllist in charm or knowledge of his art, but it is not 

 extravagant to thank him for giving to the grave thoughts 

 of our reflective age that airy poetic touch with which 

 Theocritus was able to brighten the trivial details of a 

 simple country life. In Tennyson we have many quali- 

 ties besides those that make the singer. Among the 

 rest are learning and knowledge of Nature. Perhaps 

 no English poet since Milton has read so widely and so 

 profitably in the books of ancient verse ; probably no 

 poet in any past age has drawn so real an inspiration 

 from birds, and flowers, and from the thoughts which 

 occupy the scientific student. Sometimes Tennyson 

 uses his knowledge of Nature as a store of graphic cir- 

 cumstance. Observation enables him to enrich his 

 expression by telling epithets, without alteration or even 

 expansion, of the thought thus decorated. When he 

 bids the long-delaying new year 



" Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, 

 The little speedwell's darling blue, 

 Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew, 

 Laburnums, dropping wells-of fire." 



(" In Memoriam," lxxxiii.) — 



our memory gains some jewelled phrases, which, de- 

 tached from all thought of sorrow for the dead, come 

 back into our thoughts year by year, as the seasons bring 

 the flowers of summer. 



Sometimes the observation of the naturalist-poet is 

 so penetrating as to fix our attention for all future years 

 upon features in which no one before Tennyson saw 

 anything worthy of remark. 



" More black than ash-buds in the front of March " 

 is a line which stamps an emphasis never to be forgotten 

 upon a sight which we used to pass by with listless in- 

 difference. 



The stanza, 



" When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, 



And rarely pipes the mounted thrush, 

 Or underneath the barren bush 

 Flits by the Sea-blue bird of March," 



sets the larch and the kingfisher of early spring in their 

 corner of the canvas with the sprightliness and the sure 

 touch of Rosa Bonheur. 



Tennyson has other uses for these rapid glances into 

 the underlying significance of Nature. Now and then the 

 flash of unfamiliar analogy suggests a thought new to 

 poetry. The lines, 



" Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit 

 Which in our winter woodlands looks a flower," 



are the very soul of that Dedication, which, but for the 

 Spindle-tree, would have taken a quite different and less 

 vivid turn. 



The verses to J. S. reach their highest point when they 

 bring in the long-lasting summer twilight of the northern 

 shores, never turned to such poetic service before : 



" His memory long will live alone 

 In all our hearts, as mournful light 

 That broods above the fallefl sun, 

 And dwells in heaven half the night." 



That Tennyson's use of natural fact depends upon real 

 sympathy— that the sight has power in him to call up 

 the thought — is clear to all who observe how the animals 

 and flowers which throng his written fancies render each 



