107 



each other in snch directions and degrees as to balance 

 themselves in the axes of such solids," &c, &c. 



Or take this parallel passage in which we have attempted 

 to develope the eternal principles which preside in the 

 manufacture of brick. 



Since the diremptive forces which tend to divulse the 

 material of which a human habitation is composed, act from 

 the periphery of the material creation toward the centre ; 

 and since these diremptive forces must oftentimes be tra- 

 versed by antagonist forces arising from disturbances in 

 nature, it is plain that the counteraction of these two forces 

 must necessitate the formation of brick in the shape of 

 parallelopipeds or hexahedrons. And since these hexahe- 

 drons must in process be submitted to the centrifugal force 

 of an Irishman and his hod and the adaptative energies of 

 a bricklayer depositing them side by side, the necessity of 

 juxtaposition determines these hexahedrons to be such that 

 their longitude, latitude and altitude shall be in the con- 

 stunt ratio of two. Once more, since these diremptive 

 forces tend by their divellant action to divide material not 

 firmly conglomerated, the concordant energy of heat is 

 superadded in order by its countervailing tendencies to fix 

 firmly the conjoined atoms. Hence by the help of the 

 rational insight alone, we arrive at the inevitable conclusion 

 that brick must be made of burned clay and in the form of 

 hexahedrons, eight inches long, four inches wide and two 

 inches thick. 



Or as a specimen of the author's style, which among all 

 its characteristics has not certainly those either of perspi- 

 cuity or simplicity, read a sentence on p. 388, near the 

 bottom : " The work of creation, commencing in the first 

 point of counteragency, must pass on through all the pro- 

 cess of generating the universal sphere and bringing it into 

 a fluid state by the permeation of the heat force, which just 

 held loose every molecule in the primitive ether, and then 

 sending the continual stream of the combined central forces 



