whose mental
temperament was a singular admixture of the mathematical with the
physico-metaphysical, did not at once investigate and establish the
point at issue. Either Newton or Laplace, seeking a principle and
discovering none _physical_, would have rested contentedly in the
conclusion that there was absolutely none; but it is almost impossible
to fancy, of Leibnitz, that, having exhausted in his search the physical
dominions, he would not have stepped at once, boldly and hopefully, amid
his old familiar haunts in the kingdom of Metaphysics. Here, indeed, it
is clear that he _must_ have adventured in search of the treasure:--that
he did not find it after all, was, perhaps, because his fairy guide,
Imagination, was not sufficiently well-grown, or well-educated, to
direct him aright.

I observed, just now, that, in fact, there had been certain vague
attempts at referring Gravity to some very uncertain _isms_. These
attempts, however, although considered bold and justly so considered,
looked no farther than to the generality--the merest generality--of the
Newtonian Law. Its _modus operandi_ has never, to my knowledge, been
approached in the way of an effort at explanation. It is, therefore,
with no unwarranted fear of being taken for a madman at the outset, and
before I can bring my propositions fairly to the eye of those who alone
are competent to decide upon them, that I here declare the _modus
operandi_ of the Law of Gravity to be an exceedingly simple and
perfectly explicable thing--that is to say, when we make our advances
towards it in just gradations and in the true direction--when we regard
it from the proper point of view.

Whether we reach the idea of absolute _Unity_ as the source of All
Things, from a consideration of Simplicity as the most probable
characteristic of the original action of God;--whether we arrive at it
from an inspection of the universality of relation in the gravitating
phaenomena;--or whether we attain it as a result of the mutual
corroboration afforded by both processes;--still, the idea itself, if
entertained at all, is entertained in inseparable connection with
another idea--that of the condition of the Universe of stars as we _now_
perceive it--that is to say, a condition of immeasurable _diffusion_
through space. Now a connection between these two ideas--unity and
diffusion--cannot be established unless through the entertainment of a
third idea--that of _irradiation_. Absolute Unity