Essay on Motion and Force. 



269 



would, in my opinion, so far as our knowledge of its exist- 

 ence is concerned, cease to exist ; that is, we could know 

 nothing of its existence. With the greatest deference to 

 Prof. Faraday's genius and learning, I must think him 

 wrong when he says, " inertia is probably the best proof 

 of the existence of matter;" it is only through motion 

 that we get any knowledge of its existence. For all the 

 known properties of matter as, color, ponderability, &c, 

 depend upon certain so called forces, which, if the views 

 I have advanced are correct, are all modes of motion. 

 These notions of the inertia of matter have all, undoubt- 

 edly, grown out of the idea, that matter resists motion. If 

 a rope attached to a canal-boat should be strongly pulled, 

 the boat would not move at once, but there would never- 

 theless be motion, and this motion would exist as tension ; 

 this tension would finally be converted into aggerose 

 motion, and the boat would then move for a time, if the 

 rope were entirely detached from it. Phenomena like this 

 have led to the belief that matter resists motion, but no- 

 thing can be more erroneous. When we say that matter 

 resists motion, we assert that which is not sustained either 

 by fact or induction. The fact that matter apparently moves, 

 under certain conditions, only after a lapse of some time 

 from the application of the moving power, has led to the 

 notion that there is some property of matter in general, which 

 keeps it from moving, and logically to the further belief, 

 that the inertia of bodies is directly as their mass ; but there 

 are instances, in which bodies move, on the instant the 

 conditions are established for such motion, as in the case 

 of bodies acted upon by gravity alone ; and I believe this 

 will be found to be true in all cases, when the moving power 

 is applied to all the particles of a mass simultaneously; 

 and in which the apparently suspended motion cannot be 

 accounted for by tension or some other mode of motion. 

 The analogies are all in favor of the doctrine that matter 

 tends constantly to move, and never approaches a state of 

 rest, or loses any of its motion, unless an equal increase 

 [Trans, v.] 35 



