IS Dr. Hare's reply to Professor Olmsted. 



I shall proceed to give other instances of the precipitancy 

 of Professor Olmsted, in adopting the unfavorable impres- 

 sions or my essay with which he occupies the pages of the 

 American Journal of Science. The existence of repulsion 

 and attraction as properties of matter, being referred to, as 

 self-evident, and their co-existence as properties of the same 

 particles, shewn to be inconceivable, I assumed, that there 

 must be a " matter in which repulsion resides, as well as a 

 matter in which attraction resides. 11 



This induces Professor Olmsted to make the following in- 

 quiry : 



" Does Dr. Hare maintain that the attraction which bodies ex- 

 ert, resides in a kind of matter extrinsic to the bodies them- 

 selves ?" 



It would be impossible, I think, to give a better answer to 

 this query than is afforded by the following words of my neg- 

 lected essay, words contained in the very next paragraph be- 

 low that, which has given rise to Professor Olmsted's embar- 

 rassment. 



" Substances endowed with attraction make themselves known 

 to us by that species of this power which we call gravitation, by 

 which they are drawn towards the earth and are therefore heavy 

 or ponderable, by their resistance to our bodies, producing the 

 sensation of feeling, or touch ; and by the vibrations or move- 

 ments which they excite in other matter, affecting the ear with 

 sounds, and the eye by a modified reflection of light.' 1 



Will the Professor, after reading this sentence, require any 

 further information respecting the kind of matter in which 

 attraction resides, pursuant to my view of the subject ? In- 

 dependently of this sentence, which I deem it unjustifiable in. 

 him to have neglected, I do not know how he could take up 

 the idea, that I considered the matter, in which attraction 

 resides, as any other than that, usually recognised as matter, 

 by people of common sense. Does my allegation that there 

 must be as many kinds of matter as there are incompatible 

 properties, convey the idea, that there must be more kinds of 

 matter than there are of such properties ? 



Founding injudicious inferences with respect to my opinions 

 upon errors, arising from his own inattention, the Professor 

 proceeds : . 



" I have met with no late writer who has taken it for granted 

 that there is matter in which attraction resides, distinct from the 



