ently must be _right_. Any deviation
from normality involves a tendency to return into it. A difference from
the normal--from the right--from the just--can be understood as effected
only by the overcoming a difficulty; and if the force which overcomes
the difficulty be not infinitely continued, the ineradicable tendency to
return will at length be permitted to act for its own satisfaction. Upon
withdrawal of the force, the tendency acts. This is the principle of
reaction as the inevitable consequence of finite action. Employing a
phraseology of which the seeming affectation will be pardoned for its
expressiveness, we may say that Reaction is the return from the
condition of _as it is and ought not to be_ into the condition of _as it
was, originally, and therefore ought to be_:--and let me add here that
the _absolute_ force of Reaction would no doubt be always found in
direct proportion with the reality--the truth--the absoluteness--of the
_originality_--if ever it were possible to measure this latter:--and,
consequently, the greatest of all conceivable reactions must be that
produced by the tendency which we now discuss--the tendency to return
into the _absolutely original_--into the _supremely_ primitive. Gravity,
then, _must be the strongest of forces_--an idea reached _a priori_ and
abundantly confirmed by induction. What use I make of the idea, will be
seen in the sequel.

The atoms, now, having been diffused from their normal condition of
Unity, seek to return to----what? Not to any particular _point_,
certainly; for it is clear that if, upon the diffusion, the whole
Universe of matter had been projected, collectively, to a distance from
the point of irradiation, the atomic tendency to the general centre of
the sphere would not have been disturbed in the least:--the atoms would
not have sought the point _in absolute space_ from which they were
originally impelled. It is merely the _condition_, and not the point or
locality at which this condition took its rise, that these atoms seek to
re-establish;--it is merely _that condition which is their normality_,
that they desire. "But they seek a centre," it will be said, "and a
centre is a point." True; but they seek this point not in its character
of point--(for, were the whole sphere moved from its position, they would
seek, equally, the centre; and the centre _then_ would be a _new_
point)--but because it so happens, on account of the form in which they
collectively e