﻿408 Dr. Guyot on the Forms and Forces of Matter. 



because for thirty years my mind has not ceased to work, to ob- 

 serve, and to reason in the same direction. And I have been 

 thus led to valuable discoveries — discoveries which ought to 

 serve for the mechanical proof of the cause and effect of attrac- 

 tion. As starting-point {point d'appui), and as base of the syn- 

 thesis which I am about to develope, I ought again to call the 

 attention of the readers of the Presse Scientifique to my work on 

 the movements of air and the pressure of air in movement 

 (Paris, 1835), a work which experimentally demonstrates the 

 attractions of bodies suspended in space by sonorous bodies in 

 vibration. 



The subject which I am about to attack is so vast and diffi- 

 cult to explain, that I cannot commence it without having pre- 

 viously asked for the kind and patient attention of my readers. 

 I shall certainly announce a number of propositions which will 

 appear more than doubtful, and I cannot stop to discuss and 

 prove them one by one ; but, by the patience and kindness of 

 my readers, they will become evident as they are developed. I 

 therefore ask for provisional faith ; and I think it is in harmony 

 with the spirit of my readers to grant me this preliminary faith 

 in regard to all matters advanced, with the reserved privilege of 

 judicially deciding after having heard. In fact, knowledge ac- 

 quired and established, bases its arguments on the principles 

 and facts which it has accepted. 



The spirit of discovery is chiefly supported by principles and 

 facts which are unknown or not received. 



Knowledge is therefore the born and legitimate adversary of 

 every truth which seeks other bases than its own. It is often 

 observed that learned official bodies energetically and for a long 

 time reject truths and facts which afterwards take first rank 

 amongst those adopted by science. 



If I am not mistaken, the readers of the Presse Scientifique 

 are constituted so as to hasten all kinds of progress by avoiding 

 the principal and necessary fault of accepted science — namely, 

 that of judging without hearing, or of judging according to 

 ancient laws the novelties which are presented to it, and of pro- 

 nouncing impossible every thing which is not derived from its 

 codes, and still more so that which oversets them. From this 

 point of view the Press Scientifique has a strong raison d'etre y 

 and its foundation will render incalculable services for ever, be- 

 cause, for ever, present knowledge will repel future knowledge 

 until the latter shall have become achieved science ; and then 

 the latter, being received as orthodox science, will in its turn 

 become the enemy of that which it does not know. Such is 

 the continual and legitimate contest between the past and the 

 future, between tradition and the work of progress. The rea- 



