77 
PHYSICAL AND MATHEMATICAL SECTION, 
November 9th, 1880. 
E. W. Binney, F.RS., F.G.S., President of the Section, 
in the Chair. 
“On Gravitation,” fe by the Rev. Thomas Mackereth, 
F.R.A.S., F.M.S. 
All life, motion, energy, and force are to ns only such as 
their vehicles present them, or as they make ns conscious 
of their existence. In what I am about to discuss I wish 
to include whatever originates force or effort under the 
name of conatus. And of conatus in any way, I venture 
to assert that we can know nothing excepting as it may be 
presented by and through either its assumed or sensible 
vehicle. Therefore it is impossible to think of a conatus 
without thinking of or assuming a vehicle or subject. 
Hence, to know a conatus we must know its subject. 
Again, conatus acts from within in its subject to sustain 
it, and by this effort the subject can act upon other sub- 
jects from without, and other subjects can react from with- 
out upon it; and thus the conatus within a subject can be 
brought into contact with other subjects from without to 
produce an effect. Without this action and reaction exist- 
ence is impossible. 
Each atom in the universe according to its ability attracts 
to itself every other atom of the universe. This conatus 
must be within each atom, but it is the subject or vehicle 
of this conatus which produces the effect of presence by 
the power of attraction. Thus the subject or substance of 
the atom could not subsist without the internal conatus, 
and the conatus could not produce the effect of presence 
