65 
state of things forces and motions co-exist. A simpler state, 
then, would be one in which there are forces tending to 
produce motion, but no actual movement. If all motion is 
due to a past exercise of force, we can go back in thought 
to a time when there were no motions, but forces only. This 
is the true ground of reason for a nebular theory. Such a 
state must certainly have been one of wide diffusion of matter, 
as well as of perfect rest. But if matter has been in motion 
from all eternity, no one stage of this incessant change can be 
more simple than another. There would, then, be no reason 
for accepting a primitive nebula, unless we could prove by 
strict reasoning that such was actually the state of things long 
ago. That attractive forces, beginning from a state of rest, 
would lead to rotatory motion, such as those we obsei’ve in 
the heavens, is the only real basis of any nebular theory. 
Next, the assumption that the first state of the nebula was 
one of intense heat is flatly opposed to the real principles of 
modern science. It belongs to the exploded hypothesis that 
caloiic is a distinct substance, and not merely atomic motion. 
Ihe universe, in a state of extreme diffusion, would resemble 
the highest and rarest parts of our atmosphere, and only be 
much rarer still. The feature of those regions is not intense 
heat but extreme cold. The true conception of the primitive ne- 
bula is that of a system at perfect rest, but with forces that 
can generate motion. Now heat is really atomic motion, 
and hence the primitive temperature must have been an 
absolute zero of cold. Such, accordingly, is the doctrine laid 
down in the TJnscen Universe, that heat results from potential 
energy transformed in the process of condensation. 
Bvery single point in this atheistic nebular theory involves 
a direct logical contradiction. First, if the universe be full of 
matter, there could be no motion, for no mass or particle could 
find any unoccupied place into which to move. Tliere could 
be no attractive force, for how could parts draw nearer to each 
other, when every spot between was perfectly full ? There 
could be no rotation in a homogeneous mass, since there will 
be just as much reason for turning one way as another. There 
could have been no primitive heat, since heat is motion, and 
t iere could be no change of place in a plenum, when no 
paiticle has any place not already filled, into which it could 
lemove. flhere could be no condensation for the same reason. 
The nebular theory, in its only reasonable form, requires 
these postulates ; a system of material atoms, finite, however 
vast, and therefore capable alike of motion and of increase ; a 
beginning, that is, a primitive state of perfect l’est, in which 
VOL, XI. v 
