238 
their reflectors have yet been able to send out then’ visible 
rays. If we begin with the immeasurably powerful light ot 
this apparatus, and go back from this along the chain o 
movements, say till we have passed to the fire of the steam- 
engine by which the electro-magnetic machine is driven— it 
we are careful in our mode of inquiry as we go along— we 
shall find that we have not even the shadow of anything whic 
can be philosophically called force . All is only motion. 
The light is but a state of movement in the atmosphere. 
The electricity is a similar state in the materials m which it 
is concentrated for the time. So is the magnetism — only 
motion. So, sure enough, is the motion of the machine from 
the crank onwards. So is the steam in the steam-engine. So 
is the heat and the combustion in the boiler and beneath it. 
So was the collection and the arrangement of the fuel, and the 
application of the match. So were the movements ot the 
muscles of the person who made all ready. So were the cere- 
bral changes, if you will, that produced the motion of these 
muscles. True science allows not a thought of anything in a 
this, but states of motion. There are motions that somehow 
g-ive manifestation of a truly wonderful force, but, from the 
first to the last, not one of them, nor all of them put together, 
indicates that the force resides in them. There is something 
upon which the starting and the continuance of the whole 
chain depend. That in truth, and that alone in the case, is 
strictly and properly force. It is not motion, but that which 
puts in motion. No thinking that is worthy of the name will 
overlook so obvious a distinction as this, nor can anyone who 
does overlook it, reasonably expect to reach anything but 
error as his conclusion, if he pursues such an inquiry as that 
with which we are here engaged. We shall see how the 
overlook leads to mistakes and confusion as we go on. ^ 
It is no doubt true that men who are held deservedly nigh 
in the world's estimation are responsible for the idea that force 
is matter, and that other first-rank men hold and teach 
that force is a separate entity which is neither matter nor 
mind. The notion that force is matter is, I humbly think, 
the culmination of that which represents force as other 
than a mode of being. I shall therefore attend to the 
latter idea before we enter upon the consideration ot the 
former. But here we may remark that we need ever 
to keep in view that great discoverers of facts m nature 
are often the very worst reasoners in working out the ideas 
that are to be truthfully gathered from the facts which 
they discover. Every man seems to have his own depart- 
ment in which to be useful in promoting the advance ot 
