1789. Thus, while assuming the existence of fewer imponderable causes than the celebrated author of the speculation has himself proposed, we explain the conducting power of metals, without being under the necessity of attributing to void space the property of electrical conduction. Moreover, I consider it quite consistent to suppose that the presence of the ethereal basis of electricity is indispensable to electrical conduction, and that diversities in this faculty are due to the proportion of that material power present, and the mode of its association with other matter. The immense superiority of metals will be explained, by referring it to their being peculiarly replete with the ethereal basis of heat and electricity.
1790. Hence Farraday’s suggestions respecting the materiality of what has heretofore been designated as the properties of bodies, furnish the means of refuting his arguments against the existence of ponderable impenetrable atoms as the basis of cohesion, chemical affinity, momentum, and gravitation.
1791. But I will, in the next place, prove that his suggestions not only furnish an answer to his objections to the views in this respect heretofore entertained, but are likewise pregnant with consequences directly inconsistent with the view of the subject which he has recently presented.
1792. I have said that of all the powers which are, according to Farraday’s speculations, to be deemed material, gravitation can alone be ponderable; since, according to his speculations, gravitation, in common with every power heretofore attributed to impenetrable particles, must be a matter independently pervading the space throughout which it is perceived. This being the consequence, by what tie is gravitation, or, in other words, weight—indissolubly attached to the rest? It cannot be pretended that either of the powers is the property of any other. Each of them is an m, and cannot play the part of an a, not only because an m, an effect, cannot be an a, its cause, but because, according to the premises, no a can exist. Nor can it be advanced that they are the same power, since chemical affinity and cohesion act only at insensible distances, while gravitation acts at any and every distance, with forces inversely as their squares; and, moreover, the power of chemical affinity is not commensurate with that of gravitation. One part, by weight, of hydrogen has a greater affinity, universally, for any other element than two hundred parts of gold. By what means then are cohesion, chemical affinity, and gravitation inseparably associated in all the ponderable elements of matter? Is it not fatal to the validity of the highly ingenious and interesting deductions of Farraday, that they are thus shown to be utterly incompetent to explain the inseparable association of cohesion, chemical affinity, and inertia with gravitation, while the existence of a vacuity between Newtonian atoms, mainly relied upon as the basis of an argument against their existence, is shown to be inconsistent both with the ingenious speculation which has called forth these remarks, and those Herculean “researches” which must perpetuate his fame? (See Appendix for Farraday’s Speculations on Electric Conduction and the Nature of Matter.)
On Whewell’s demonstration that all matter is heavy.
1793. While the speculations of Farraday, isolate gravitation, as the only matter endowed with weight, and treat all other matters as weightless, those of another eminent philosopher, Whewell, would tend to prove that all matter is heavy.
1794. This subject may be interesting now, when we are anxious to understand well the nature of matter, which Comte would represent as the basis of mind, and when it becomes a point of departure in forming ideas of spirit and mind, as they must be contemplated by Spiritualism. I therefore subjoin a critique upon the allegation that all matter can be heavy, and on the relation between vis inertiæ and gravitation.
1795. One consideration seems to be usually overlooked in contemplating these forces. It is forgotten that inertia is the property of one body, while gravitation requires two for its existence. If there were only one body in nature, it might move on, in obedience to its vis inertiæ, for any length of time; but, during an isolated existence, could neither attract nor be attracted. Whewell’s theorem, in his own language, is as follows:
1796. “We see,” alleges Whewell, “that the propositions that all bodies are heavy, and that inertia is proportional to weight, necessarily follow from those fundamental ideas which we unavoidably employ in all attempts to reason concerning the mechanical relations of bodies.” (See Demonstration that all Matter is heavy, by the Rev. William Whewell, B.D. Silliman’s Journal, vol. 42, page 265.)