652 ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR LOVERING. 
are not easily deflected from the old ruts, the intricacies of the 
new mathematics will outweigh the superiority of the new physics. 
The old question, in regard to the nature of gravitation, was 
never settled: it was simply dropped. Now it is revived with as 
much earnestness as ever, and with more intelligence. Astronomy 
cast in its own mould the original theories of electrical and mag- 
netic action. The revolution in electricity and magnetism must 
necessarily react upon astronomy. It was proved by Laplace, 
from data which would now, probably, require a numerical correc- 
tion, that the velocity of the force of gravitation could not be 
less than eight million times the velocity of light; in fact, that it 
was infinite. Those who believe in action at a distance cannot 
properly speak of the transmission of gravitation. Force can be 
transmitted only by matter: either with it or through it. Ac- 
cording to their view, action at a distance is the force, and it 
admits of no other illustration, explanation, or analysis. Itis not 
surprising that Faraday and others, who had lost their faith in 
action at short distances, should have been completely staggered 
by the ordinary interpretation of the law of gravitation, and that 
they declared the clause which asserted that the force diminished 
with the square of the distance to be a violation of the princi- 
ple of the conservation of force. ; ` 
Must we then content ourselves with the naked facts of gravita- 
tion, as Comte did, or is it possible to resolve them into a mode of 
action in harmony with our general experience, and which does 
not shock our conceptions of matter and force? In 1798, Count 
being mutually screened from this bombardment. 
to this hypothesis, which introduced Lucretius into the | 
Newton and his followers, that the collision of atoms wit 
and with planets, would cause a secular diminution in the 
h atoms, 
force of 
