John Wesley Powell

“ These essentials are simple and wholly unlike one another. There is nothing in unity like extension, nothing in extension like speed, nothing in speed like persistence. There is no possible way of deriving one from another. We cannot derive extension from unity, but extension must be concomitant with unity; extension and unity are concomitant in one particle. We cannot derive speed from extension, but the thing which has speed must have extension. We cannot derive persistence from speed, but that which has persistence must have speed. ”

“ Having deduced or discovered four essentials or concomitants in every particle of matter, we have yet to determine whether these are all, and for this purpose we are compelled to assemble in a passing review all of the bodies of the universe. To do this it becomes necessary to discover in what manner these four essentials become properties as quantities and kinds, for we have quantitative properties and classific properties. Having discovered how the essentials become properties, we can then go on in the review of the universe of bodies. ”

“ The body lying upon the ground at rest is not without motion, for it has the motion of the earth about its axis and the motion of the earth about the sun; it also has a motion of its molecules and atoms, which is heat and structural motion. If the body which is lying upon the ground is moved the motions are deflected and it is impossible to discover that any motion as speed is added to them. Rest is only the absence of molar motion. Fourth, the same particle of matter must have persistence, for persistence is necessary to its existence. ”

“ Every body, whether it be a stellar system or an atom of hydrogen, has certain fundamental characteristics found in all. These are number, space, motion and time, and if it be an animate body, judgment. ”

“ Neglecting the two outer envelopes and considering only the stony crust, we find that it is composed of many bodies or formations and these of rocks, while there are many plants and animals, and all again are divided into grains, crystals or cells, and the grains, crystals or cells are divided into molecules, and molecules are composed of other molecules, until at last chemical atoms are reached; so it is discovered that the universe is a hierarchy of bodies. ”

“ A substance is an aggregation of like particles in one body or a number of bodies. Bodies are composed of substances. For example, the air is a substance which is again composed of substances; the water is a substance, and this water is oxygen and hydrogen and contains in solution many other substances. In the envelope of rock a great variety of substances are discovered; then there are vegetal and animal substances. Thus in the hierarchy of bodies there is discovered to be a hierarchy of substances, extending from elements to protoplasm. ”

“ The student who follows my argument must first become accustomed to the discrimination between concomitancy and relativity. Relativity is the relation of one particle or body to another; concomitancy is the coexistence of one property with another in the same particle or body. ”

“ The vast multitude of substances have so far been resolved into about seventy seemingly simple substances, but there is reason to believe that they are to be still further resolved into one primordial substance, which is called matter. Matter, then, is the ultimate substance into which all other substances which constitute the bodies of the universe are resolved; and matter may be of one primordial kind, or it may be of seventy kinds, more or less. ”

“ Bodies are resolved into more and more simple and homogeneous substances, and it is the theory of some chemists that ultimate analysis will resolve them into one simple kind, so that every particle will be like every other particle in all its properties. ”

“ A body and its particles are reciprocal. When we consider a body as composed of particles we consider internal relations, but when we consider the particles severally their relations to one another are external. ”

“ There must be one, or it does not exist. Second, it must have extension, for without extension it does not exist. Third, it must have speed, for it cannot have motion without speed, nor can it have force without motion, and a particle of matter not in motion is unknown. ”

“ The earth itself is composed of four grand bodies: an outer envelope of air or atmosphere, a middle envelope of water or hydrosphere, an inner envelope of rock or lithosphere, and the grand central nucleus or centrosphere. ”

“ The four great doctrines of modern science which I have enumerated were originally guesses, but they have largely been accepted by scientific men because they explain the phenomena of the universe to which they relate. ”