SUN FORCE AND EARTH FORCE. 
335 
invariably one of two antecedent conditions — enfeebled motion 
(I mean primary motion) , or opposition to primary motion. 
Thus everything in nature is moulded out of the sphere. It 
would appear, in fact, as if the force that led to form in every 
case radiated from a centre, giving direction to the particles of 
ponderable matter, and, if let alone, arranging them on one 
fixed type. 
Nature, prudent Mathematician, never endeavours to square 
the circle. There is no natural object whatever that has not 
in it the element of the sphere. At the same time, out of the 
element of the sphere what wonders nature develops, what 
art, what beauty ! The alpine mountain that lifts its head 
“ so high into the sky 33 : and the — 
Peak that wears its cap of snow, 
In very presence of the regal sun, 
together with the simplest mound that baby feet can surmount; 
the gigantic forester the oak, or the Wellingtonia, together 
with the daisy and the buttercup ; the sea Leviathan and those 
mightier of the mighty which in past ages walked this earth, 
and which have waited for an Owen to reinstate them even in 
dead outline, together with the lowest trace of living thing 
that the best of microscopes can reach ; the crash of Niagara, 
with force wasted each moment equivalent to all the engines 
human hands have made for motion, together with the gentlest 
rippling rill ; the huge ocean with all the life on it and in it 
embracing the lands, together with the tiniest lake in mead or 
vale ; the largest of the suns on which our earth, firmly set, 
would be less than “ Ben Lomond 33 on earth itself, together 
with the smallest asteroid that the telescope can reveal ; the 
things that are and are not, the forms without substance ; the 
hollow natural cave, or the wonderful canopy of blue sky, the 
shadow of the mountain, or the gorgeous rainbow evanishing 
in the storm, together with the things that are most real and 
nearest to our hands, the seed we plant, the seed we crush and 
eat, the fruit we take from the tree or dig from the earth ; our 
very senses, the eyes we see with, the ears we hear with, the 
tongue we taste with, the hands we work with, the brain we 
think with ; the goodly framework of body that knits us to- 
j gether ; the heart that pulsates ; these, one and all, great and 
i little, are formed on the sphere. 
Man himself, who in his makings of form differs from 
nature, in that nature evolves or throws out, while he con- 
denses or brings together, does still, as if by uncontrollable 
instinct, build or construct with the sphere as his first model. 
He shall span a wide river with a bridge ; he shall erect a 
