99 



from the second law of motion, to which we alluded just 

 above. By this continued pressure and lateral extension, 

 space is gradually filled with matter, assuming under the 

 laws of force, he says, a spherical form. But how this 

 matter of his becomes moulded into a spherical form, we 

 confess ourselves unable to see. Admitting the writer's 

 assumed action of his activities, it would follow, we think, 

 that the world would become a cylinder ; or if he objects 

 to this, that the lateral force decreases in proportion as it 

 is acting further from the point of contact of the two great 

 activities, then it must follow that the world would be 

 shaped like two cones placed base to base. In no way 

 have we been able to reason out a sphere. But if the reader 

 is anxious to gain new ideas about world formation, let him 

 consult p. 140 for himself. 



It would be impossible within the limits of an article 

 like this, to discuss fully all the points which challenge dis- 

 cussion in this work, and we are obliged therefore to leave 

 this process of world formation, in order to follow our 

 author to the discussion of the principles of gravity and 

 falling bodies. 



On p. 152 he speaks of a repulsion, by which the centre 

 atom repels all the outlying molecules on all sides of the 

 centre. And since this repulsion must be exerted upon all 

 the particles of the sphere, the repulsion must be as the 

 amount of the sphere, or as the cube of the radius. " But," 

 says he, " any concentric layer of molecular forces is dimi- 

 nished in repulsion in proportion to the number of layers 

 lying between it and the centre, that is, in proportion to 

 the cube of the radius of its own sphere, and thus each en- 

 sphered layer of molecules repels inversely as the cube of 

 the radius of its own sphere." 



Now it is evident upon the author's own grounds, that 

 this repulsion can not decrease inversely as the cube of the 

 radius ; for the number of layers, lying between any layer 

 and the centre, increases only as the radius and not as the 



