ted among the giants of philosophy. Des Cartes and
Leibnitz denied that any new motion originated in nature, or that any
ever ceased to exist; all motion being in a circle, passing from one
body to another, one losing what the other gained. Newton, on the
other hand, believed that new motions were generated and existing ones
destroyed. On the first supposition, there is a fixed amount of force
always circulating in the universe. On the second, the total amount may
be increasing or diminishing. You will find in the "Annual of Scientific
Discovery" for 1858 a very interesting lecture by Professor Helmholtz of
Bonn, in which it is maintained that a certain portion of force is lost
in every natural process, being converted into unchangeable heat, so
that the universe will come to a stand-still at last, all force passing
into heat, and all heat into a state of equilibrium.

The doctrines of the convertibility or specific equivalence of the
various forms of force, and of its conservation, which is its logical
consequence, are very generally accepted, as I believe, at the present
time, among physicists. We are naturally led to the question, What is
the nature of force? The three illustrious philosophers just referred
to agree in attributing the general movements of the universe to the
immediate Divine action. The doctrine of "preestablished harmony" was
an especial contrivance of Leibnitz to remove the Creator from unworthy
association with the less divine acts of living beings. Obsolete as this
expression sounds to our ears, the phrase laws of the universe, which
we use so constantly with a wider application, appears to me essentially
identical with it.

Force does not admit of explanation, nor of proper definition, any more
than the hypothetical substratum of matter. If we assume the Infinite as
omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, we cannot suppose Him excluded from
any part of His creation, except from rebellious souls which voluntarily
exclude Him by the exercise of their fatal prerogative of free-will.
Force, then, is the act of immanent Divinity. I find no meaning in
mechanical explanations. Newton's hypothesis of an ether filling the
heavenly spaces does not, I confess, help my conceptions. I will, and
the muscles of my vocal organs shape my speech. God wills, and the
universe articulates His power, wisdom, and goodness. That is all I
know. There is no bridge my mind can throw from the "immaterial" cause
to the "mater