110 



only cause of motion ? I cannot imagine a reply ; it seems a 

 mere assumption^ being unsupported by observation, as we shall 

 see. What is the previous action "in a case of spontaneous 

 action/' or what the pre-existent force in a case of the 

 '^creation of force"? If Professor Tyndall confine his state- 

 ment to necessary motion, we agree with him that we must 

 seek for some cause antecedent to the motion, but not that the 

 cause must be itself motion. TTe must, in a word, seek for an 

 ultimate cause that is not motion, — for a powerthat can spontane- 

 ously move the not-self, itself remaining at rest j that is, we only 

 explam motion when we refer it back to the will of God, or a 

 sentient creature, who originated it. Mr. Spencer might also 

 write as he does if motion were a substantial existence. He 

 then, indeed, could say that to think of motion beginning 

 would be to think of nothing becoming something ; but when 

 motion is only change of place of substance, to speak in this way 

 is to misuse language. It seems strange that a scientific 

 man should do so, for any one may, with the gi-eatest 

 ease, conceive motion both as commencing and ceasing. 

 But not only is it a conceivable thought, it is also an 

 observed fact, that motion begins. There is, for example, lying 

 before me a heavy book, nicely balanced on the edge of the 

 table j the slightest touch of my finger causes it to fall to the 

 ground ; and, striking other things as it descends, they also all 

 fall with it. Before I touched the book, it and all the others 

 were at rest, so far as the surrounding objects were concerned. 

 I, in causing the fall, did not expend any appreciable muscular 

 power, for contact was almost sufficient, and yet in the fall what 

 motions were manifested? Where were they before the pon- 

 derous literature came crashing to the groimd ? Or take the 

 well-known illustration of the ignition of gunpowder. There 

 is a mine ready for explosion ; a train is lying beneath my 

 hand ; I lower my finger and thumb half an inch, bring a spark 

 into contact with the train ; presently a terrific upheaval, and a 

 mountain rolls like water into the valley beneath. How little 

 was the motion that caused all this — the lowering of a finger 

 half an inch ; how gi-eat the motion thus produced, and yet we 

 are to be told that the commencement of motion is incon- 

 ceivable and untrue. 



25. " Ah, yes,^' say our friends, " that is true, but you are not 

 taking into accoimt the potential energy stored up in the gun- 

 powder before the spark was applied, the potential energy was 

 great in amount, the kinetic or actual energy but little, but 

 after the explosion the kinetic increased in the same proportion 

 as the potential, or latent, decreased.*' This sounds plausible 

 while we use the mystic word energy, but as it is motion with 



