William Bower Taylor

“ The principle of the conservation of force would lead us to assume that when A and B attract each other less because of increasing distance, then some other exertion of power, either within or without them, is proportionately growing up. And again that when their distance is diminished, as from 10 to 1, the power of attraction, now increased a hundred-fold, has been produced out of some other form of power which has been equivalently reduced." [9] Were gravity merely a dynamic energy, generated in time and space by an anterior and exterior force, the inference would undoubtedly be correct. ”

“ How are we to conceive of this force growing up in A to a million-fold or more ? And if the surrounding particles be then removed, of its diminution in an equal degree? Or how are we to look upon the power raised up in all these outer x^articles by the action of A on them, or by their action one on another, without admitting (according to the limited definition of gravitation) the facile generation and annihilation of force ? ”

“ Doubtless the centers of force vary in their distance one from another, but that which is truly the matter of one atom touches the matter of its neighbors. Hence matter will be continuous throughout, and in considering a mass of it, we have not to suppose a distinction between its atoms and any intervening space. ”

“ Although it is certainly true that when B is removed to an infinite distance from A, the power of A upon B will be infinitely diminished, it is not a sound inference that "the power in A will be infinitely diminished." ”

“ Whatever a priori conceptions may be indulged therefore, as to the natural fitness of a central force having the same tension at all distances, it has been definitely established by two centuries of continuous and irreversible demonstration, that gravity is not such a force. ”

“ Several years later, in a memoir "On the Conservation of Force," Professor Faraday thus states the result of his further meditations on the "attractive" theme of gravitation: "I believe I represent the received idea of the gravitating force aright in saying that it is a simple attractive force exerted between any two or all the particles or masses of matter at every sensible distance, but with a strength varying inversely" as the square of the distance. The usual idea of the force implies direct action at a distance ”

“ The powers around the centers give these centers the properties of atoms of matter; and these powers again, when many centers by their conjoint forces are grouped into a mass, give to every part of that mass the properties of matter The view now stated of the constitution of matter would seem to involve necessarily the conclusion that matter fills all space, or at least all space to which gravitation extends ; for gravitation is a property of matter dependent on a certain force, and it is this force which constitutes matter. ”

“ Elasticity is a natural force, having always an entirely different spacepotential from gravity, and yet is equally removed in every case from that ratio of uniformity supposed to be the true representation of conservation. In the case of tensile elasticity, (as of a rubber baud or of a long spiral spring,) the tension increases directly with the distance of elongation.
Professor Faraday thus proceeds to illustrate the difficulty he finds in the ordinary definition of gravity : " Assume two particles of matter, A and B, in free space. ”

“ Now the [230] powers we know and recognize in every phenomenon of the creation ; the abstract matter in none ; why then assume the existence of that of which we are ignorant, which we cannot conceive, and for which there is no philosophical necessity ? ”