1882. 1 
Force and Matter. 
663 
this adt it would have to be inactive, and inaction is irre- 
concileable with force.” In your June issue H. M. C. remarks 
on the above, and his remarks I fully endorse. Dr. Buchner 
says “ a force can only exist in so far as it is adtive this 
is quite right. Newton says of it, “ consistit in actione sola .” 
But using force in its corredt technical sense, it is clearly 
wrong to speak of the first cause of the world as a force. If 
we can give it any name derived from dynamics we should 
call it an energy. But an energy does not depend on adtivity 
for existence. The very title of Dr. Buchner’s well-known 
book, “ Matter and Force,” taken in connection with its 
object, is enough to show he uses force {Kraft) in a vague 
unscientific manner, and that he is open to the complaint 
made by Clifford against numerous writers on the subject of 
force {see “ Nature,” June 10, 1880). 
Lucretius’s letter appearing shortly after'my article, “ The 
Formative Power in Nature,” in your issue of February, 
1881, and whilst an agreeing controversy was in progress 
between myself and your valuable correspondent, H. B., I 
could not but conclude that, although couched in general 
terms, the challenge was to either or both. It appears to 
me the arguments there used fully rebut Dr. Buchner’s 
assumptions , for really they are no more. The Lucretian’s 
query I determined to answer; the difficulty was the book. 
I supposed it to be published only in German, and therefore 
to me a sealed book. I kept the subject in mind, and lately 
found there was an English translation. These remarks I 
give as an apology for my long silence. The book is 
obtained and read, and now for my answer to its first chap- 
ter, which really contains the gist of the whole book — and a 
very insufficient book, when the momentous importance of 
the subject is considered, I deem it — and I can well join in 
the wonder its author expresses when he found his work was 
a success. 
The edition I procured and from which I quote contains 
ten prefaces. Their perusal will show that they are not the 
work of a philosopher, and are wanting in that dignity of 
which the late Charles Darwin afforded so marked an 
example when assailed on every side because of his utter- 
ances, which really have reformed natural science. Unfor- 
tunately to surface, unappreciative, and unscientific men it 
is supposed to have afforded data to assail those who think 
that of necessity there must be a God as the ordinator of 
Nature. The French revolutionists abolished God, but later 
workers in the same cause felt the necessity of a God, and 
decreed that if there were no God it would be necessary to 
