ON THE LAWS OF NATURE. 381 



This muft have happened the rather, as the diftance 

 of the atoms which lay next to thofe carried off, com- 

 pared with the diftance of thofe very ones drawn away* 

 gives a difference, which is to be regarded as infinitely 

 fmall, and hence in refpecl: to the effect of the force 

 which fevered thofe atoms from the globe, could have 

 caufed no remarkable difference at all. Never once 

 can the earth be deprived of whatever belongs to its 

 individuity. Every lofs of its atoms would leffen its 

 gravity. Thus fhaken in its courfe, it would foon be 

 unable to preferve its equilibrium in regard to the reft 

 of the fpheres ; and thus its deftruclion muft unavoid- 

 ably enfue. The earth's mafs of force can nowife be 

 diminilhed ; which yet, by fhe lofs of the fmalleft fub- 

 ftance, it would inevitably be. 



, Befides; whence came that monftrous, remotely 

 acting force, which operated, as it were, but for a 

 moment, on a certain point of our ball, and then — 

 exifted no more ? Sprung it from nothing to match 

 away an inhabitant of our earth ; and then, after a mo- 

 mentaneous agency, to fall back again into its primi- 

 tive nothing ? 



The mathematical philofopher perceives that the 

 afcent of thofe two perfons mentioned in the annals of 

 Rome, could not have happened without a violation of 

 the laws of gravity 5 that this miracle would have fpreael 

 confufion through all the fpheres, even to the - Al- 

 mighty's throne, and would have fhaken the firm 

 foundations whereon the order and exiftence of the 

 phyfical world is built. The total filence of hiftory on 

 the great confequences fuch an event muft necefTarily 

 have produced on the globe, is a fare demonftratioa 

 that thefe tranfadtions in reality never happened. , ,. 



