376 ©tt THE LAW!! OF NATURE. 



The expanfive power is an effect, refulting from ths' 

 attractive force, and always exhibits itfelf, when bo-* 

 4ies mutually fhock or rub* It is the reaction of the 

 attractive power, which arifes when the primitive parti- 

 cles of matter— that constantly act in reciprocation — 

 would pafs into the irate of immediate contact. Heat, 

 light, and fire, are the greateft effects pf the expanfive 

 power which are at all times produced, when, by nature 

 and art, bodies are divided into very fmall parts, which 

 meet each other in oppofite directions. 



The fhock itfelf, then, according to Burton's prin- 

 ciples, is dependent on attraction. The expanfive 

 power is nothing but the attractive, in fo far as this 

 latter is become negative. Light, heat, fire, are no 

 more than particular modes of the being of matter. 

 There exirts but one force, and but one matter, always 

 in its parts rtriving to attract or to repell, according to, 

 circumftances. 



The attractive power is that of which count Algarot- 

 ti, m his excellent dialogues on Newton's optics, 

 fpeaks thus : "Attraction, far from being an occult 

 < c quality, is a very evident property of matter. We 

 cc mould not confound this term, on which the de- 

 6C monftrative explanation of numberlefs phenomena, 

 <fi depends, with tho.fe words to which no idea is, con- - 

 *£ nected, and which later philosophers have invented, 



to enable themfelves to give a chimerical reafon for. 

 "certain phsenomena. It is an univerfal principle, 

 4< which all things mult follow, from the volatile atom, 

 * ( to the immenfe orbs of the planets. Its laws are af- 

 *' fiened, and its effects enumerated even to the 



O' r* ft 4 \ i - . , ... 



V. fmallefi 



