ng withdrawn
from it upon its completion. _Then_ commences Reaction, and through
Reaction, "Principle," as we employ the word. It will be advisable,
however, to limit the application of this word to the two _immediate_
results of the discontinuance of the Divine Volition--that is, to the two
agents, _Attraction_ and _Repulsion_. Every other Natural agent depends,
either more or less immediately, upon these two, and therefore would be
more conveniently designated as _sub_-principle.

It may be objected, thirdly, that, in general, the peculiar mode of
distribution which I have suggested for the atoms, is "an hypothesis and
nothing more."

Now, I am aware that the word hypothesis is a ponderous sledge-hammer,
grasped immediately, if not lifted, by all very diminutive thinkers,
upon the first appearance of any proposition wearing, in any particular,
the garb of _a theory_. But "hypothesis" cannot be wielded _here_ to any
good purpose, even by those who succeed in lifting it--little men or
great.

I maintain, first, that _only_ in the mode described is it conceivable
that Matter could have been diffused so as to fulfil at once the
conditions of irradiation and of generally equable distribution. I
maintain, secondly, that these conditions themselves have been imposed
upon me, as necessities, in a train of ratiocination _as rigorously
logical as that which establishes any demonstration in Euclid_; and I
maintain, thirdly, that even if the charge of "hypothesis" were as fully
sustained as it is, in fact, unsustained and untenable, still the
validity and indisputability of my result would not, even in the
slightest particular, be disturbed.

To explain:--The Newtonian Gravity--a law of Nature--a law whose existence
as such no one out of Bedlam questions--a law whose admission as such
enables us to account for nine-tenths of the Universal phaenomena--a law
which, merely because it does so enable us to account for these
phaenomena, we are perfectly willing, without reference to any other
considerations, to admit, and cannot help admitting, as a law--a law,
nevertheless, of which neither the principle nor the _modus operandi_ of
the principle, has ever yet been traced by the human analysis--a law, in
short, which, neither in its detail nor in its generality, has been
found susceptible of explanation _at all_--is at length seen to be at
every point thoroughly explicable, provided only we yield our assent
to----what? To an hypot