We may ask, therefore, in the first place: Does a simple element possess any occult power besides its known power of attracting or repelling?
This question must be answered in the negative. Occult powers and occult qualities have been admitted by the ancient philosophers, and are admitted even now, in compound substances, not because any unknown power resides in the first elements of which they are made up, but because the manner of their composition, and consequently the manner of determining the resultant of their elementary actions, transcends our conception and baffles our calculations. Thus the phenomena of chemical affinity, cohesion, capillarity, electricity, and magnetism depend on actions which science cannot trace to their primitive causes—viz., to the simple elements—but only to their proximate causes, which are complex, and, as such, follow different laws of causation corresponding to the different modes of their constitution. Before we are able to trace such phenomena to their simple and primitive causes, it would be necessary to find out the intrinsic constitution of every molecule; the number, quality, and arrangement of its constituent elements; the arrangement and distance of the molecules in the body; and the mathematical formulas by which every movement of each particle could be determined for every instant of time. As this has not been done, and will never be done, the [pg 671] determination of the causality of molecular phenomena remains, and will ever remain, an insoluble problem, and the complex power from which any such phenomenon proceeds remains, and will ever remain, unknown so far as it is the result of an unknown composition, though we know, at least in general, the nature of the primitive powers from which it results. In other terms, there are no occult powers in matter, but only unknown resultants of known primitive powers.
To prove this, we observe that an occult power is to be admitted, then, only when a phenomenon occurs which cannot proceed from powers already known. This is evident; for, when phenomena can be accounted for by known powers, there is no ground for any inquiry about occult causes. In other words, to look for occult causes without data or indications on which to ground the induction, is to propose to one's self a problem without conditions; which no man in his senses would do. Now, no phenomenon has been observed anywhere in material things which cannot proceed from the known powers of attraction and repulsion; nay, it is positively certain that all phenomena proceed from the same powers. For each material point, when acted on, receives a determination to local movement, and nothing else; and therefore the effect of the action of matter upon matter is nothing but local movement, one element approaching to or retiring from the other. Now, this is precisely what attractive and repulsive powers are competent to do. Hence it is that in all the works of science and natural philosophy the causality of phenomena of every kind is uniformly traced to mere attractions and repulsions.
Again, if any occult power, besides that of attracting or repelling, be assumed to reside in a primitive element of matter, such a power will remain idle for ever, inasmuch as it will never be applicable to the production of natural phenomena. On the other hand, it is obvious that a power destined to remain idle for ever is an absurdity. It is therefore absurd to assume that there is in the elements of matter any occult power besides that of attracting or repelling. In this argument the minor proposition is evident, because all active power is naturally destined to act; whilst the major proposition is evidently inferred from the fact that matter has no passivity, except with regard to local motion, as is acknowledged by all philosophers, and as we shall presently show from intrinsic reasons. Whence it follows that, if there were in matter any hidden power not destined, as the attractive and the repulsive are, to produce local movement, such a power would be absolutely useless, as absolutely inapplicable to any other matter, and would remain in this absurd condition for ever. We need not, therefore, trouble ourselves with the absurd hypothesis of occult powers; and we conclude, accordingly, that the principle of activity of a primitive element is merely attractive or repulsive, as explained in one of our past articles.
It may be asked, in the second place: Is the centre of a simple element to be identified with the principle of passivity of the element?
This question must be answered in the affirmative. For the principle of passivity is that to which the action is terminated; but the action of any one element of matter is terminated to the centre of any other element; therefore the centre of any element is its principle of passivity. The minor proposition of this syllogism [pg 672] might be proved by metaphysical considerations[156]; but we may prove it more clearly in the following manner: Locomotive action implies direction, and no direction can be really taken in space except from a real point to another real point. Now, that by which any two elements, A and B, mark out two distinct points in space, is the centre of their sphere of action. The direction of the action is therefore from the centre of A to the centre of B, and vice versa—that is, the action of the one is terminated to the centre of the other. And thus it is evident that each single element receives the action of every other element in its central point, which is, accordingly, the passive principle of the element. This conclusion may be expressed in this other manner: In a material element the matter (passive principle) is a point from which the action of the element is directed towards other points in space, and to which the actions of other material points in space are directed.
We may remark, also, that material elements, whilst they are always ready to receive movement from extrinsic agents, cannot apply their own power to themselves, because they are inert. This being the case, it obviously follows that the action of an extrinsic agent on an element is terminated there where the action of the element itself cannot be terminated. Now, a little reflection will show that the centre of the element is just the point where the action of the element itself cannot be terminated. For as locomotive action implies direction, and as no direction can be had from the centre of activity to itself, but only from a point to a distinct point, the action of the element upon its own centre is a metaphysical impossibility. Whence we conclude that the principle of passivity, or that in which the primitive element is liable to receive a determination to local movement, is nothing else than the intrinsic term of its essence, the centre from which it directs its action in a sphere, or, in other terms, the matter itself as contradistinguished from the substantial form.
In the third place, it may be asked: Can it be proved that a material element is susceptible of nothing but local movement?
We answer: Yes. For we have shown that the passivity of the material element resides in a mere mathematical point, which, having no bulk, cannot be liable to intrinsic changes, and therefore is susceptible of such determinations only as will bring about a change of extrinsic relations. It is hardly necessary to explain that such a change of extrinsic relations is always brought about by local movement; for such relations either are distances or depend on distances; and distances cannot be modified except by local movement. It is thus manifest that material elements are susceptible of nothing but local movement. Hence the passivity of matter is confined to the reception of local movement alone.
From this well-known truth we may again confirm our preceding solution of the question concerning occult powers. For the activity and the passivity of a simple element essentially respond to one another in the same manner and with as strict a necessity as giving and receiving, and since they spring from the principles of one and the same primitive essence, they must belong to one and the same kind. If, then, there were [pg 673] in the material elements any occult power besides that which produces local movement, there would be also a correspondent passivity not destined to receive local movement; for without this new passivity the occult power could not be exercised. And since the passivity of matter is limited to the sole reception of local movement, none but locomotive power can be admitted to reside in matter.