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atoms ; just so, then, we must conceive their force of attraction, 
and its laws, to be determined at the moment when volition 
lays aside its distinguishing characteristic to appear as phy- 
sical. The importance of epochs cannot, for the purposes of 
this essay, be overrated ; we shall not fully comprehend that 
importance until we come to treat particularly of force, which, 
by means of its laws, I shall be able to refer unmistakably to 
a power exercising both will and intelligence. But I must 
first call attention to some other uses in the marking of time, 
by which we may prepare ourselves for what is to follow. 
Observation has familiarized us with the force of attraction. 
Attraction in atoms, when not counterbalancing itself in 
opposite directions, gives rise to motion ; and motion of the 
atoms attracted is not only a physical event, but the only 
event attraction can immediately occasion. It may be ob- 
jected that the mind cannot conceive spaces, say small geo- 
metrical spheres, to change their places ; but that is no diffi- 
culty, as it is quite conceivable that the Omnipotent volition, 
which gives to spaces material solidity, can transfer their 
solidity to similar spaces in a linear direction, and thus, in 
effect, cause the atoms of matter to move towards one 
another. 
Physical events, material facts, or natural phenomena, by 
whatever name they may be called, are matter in motion — - 
some relative position of things which has been changing into 
that which is. Now, it is of the utmost importance to observe 
that all physical events, without exception, whenever and in 
whatever part of space they may occur, must be related to 
each other by time and place ; that is to say, either by co- 
existence or antecedence, and by relative position. In the 
present, as in the past, space is replete with events to which 
it would be impossible to deny the relations of time and place. 
And, on the other hand, it is equally obvious that to those 
relations alone no effect can be ascribed, for they can produce 
no motion in which only physical events can originate ; they 
are insufficient to change one event into any other. 
Among physical events there are some which follow certain 
others with an invariableness not to be explained by the rela- 
tions of time and place, and about which the mind is conscious 
that it perceives something more than orderly sequence. It 
perceives in the uniformity which marks their successions the 
necessity of a third relation to occasion what the first two 
relations cannot effect ; some influence connecting consecutive 
events by an action which cannot be questioned, without first 
admitting that invariable uniformity can result from no cause, 
and which of course we cannot assent to. Whatever be the 
