Natural force

“ Having shewn that impulsion depends on attraction; that the expansive force, like the attractive, becomes negative; that light, heat, and fire, are only modes of the common existing matter; in one word, that there exists but one sole force, and one sole matter, ever ready to attract or repel, according to circumstances; let us see how, with this single spring, and this single subject, Nature can vary her works, ad infinitum. ”

“ It may be at once admitted that the muscular force of animals and men, is merely the transformed energy [367] derived from the primary forces of nature. So much has been, if not rigidly proved, yet rendered highly probable, and it is in perfect accordance with all our knowledge of natural forces and natural laws. ”

“ Mechanical philosophers have suggested the possibility of accumulating and treasuring up for human use some of the greater natural forces, which the action of the elements puts forth with such astonishing energy. ”

“ If, with your apparatus,—if, with the means at the disposal of humanity,—you should succeed in achieving all these marvels of nature; then perhaps you might settle the great problem of what life is,—whether an independent force, or a simple modification of an universal force, of which heat, light, electricity, and magnetism, will be but different modes of manifestation. ”

“ He wished to be shown that changes in form caused evolution in force; that chemical or mechanical energy had by natural selection and minute changes, under uniform conditions, converted itself into thought. The ganoid fish seemed to prove--to him--that it had selected neither new form nor new force, but that the curates were right in thinking that force could be increased in volume or raised in intensity only by help of outside force. ”

“ I, however, view and understand Nature in this manner, and am almost induced to believe that she is still more simple; the phenomena exhibited by brute matter is caused by a single force, and from this force, combined with that of heat, originate those living particles which gave rise to, and support all, the various effects of organized bodies. ”

“ Throughout all Nature, and throughout all those operations of the human intellect which depend on the manipulation of natural forces, we see the two doctrines to be perfectly harmonious—strains and tensions maintaining themselves in absolute silence up to the bending or the breaking-point—pressures pressing with tremendous but noiseless energy up to the bursting point—and then moments of rapid and sometimes of instantaneous change. ”

“ A cause of a Phenomenon being independent of human will is called a Force, and the stone falls by the force of Gravitation, or that natural law which compels every material object to approach every other material object. ”

“ No form in which nature presents matter, no form which men by their labor give to matter, is stable; even iron rusts and gold abrades; and when the form changes the matter escapes. Light, heat, winds, rain, frost, moths, worms, and other forces are pulling down as fast as the same and other natural forces, including those of man, are building up. ”

“ All Force is probably Will-Force.—If we are satisfied that force or forces are all that exist in the material universe, we are next led to enquire what is force? We are acquainted with two radically distinct or apparently distinct kinds of force—the first consists of the primary forces of nature, such as gravitation, cohesion, repulsion, heat, electricity, &c. ”

“ Darwin's views aside, the whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed—from the inorganic to the organic—from blind force to conscious intellect and will. ”

“ The universe would be like a machine ill regulated; every thing would go wrong; repeated collisions and a rapid disorganization must be the consequence. We will, however, attempt to illustrate one or two of the cases in which this would take place, by pointing out forces which act in the organic world, and which are adjusted to the force of gravity.
1. The first instance we shall take, is the force manifested by the ascent of the sap in vegetables. ”

“ On the other hand, as we see the physical laws of early times still acting with more or less force, it might not be unreasonable to expect that we should still see some remnants, or partial and occasional workings of the life-creating energy amidst a system of things generally stable and at rest. ”

“ We have remarked, also, the enormous differences in the stability of natural forces: some of them, as heat, are metamorphosed with great difficulty; others, as electricity, are of very weak permanence; and others, again, in whose existence we have good reasons to believe, are too evanescent to be detected by the keenest scrutiny. ”

“ Physical force, force applied outwardly to the body, as distinguished from persuasion, &c.; Physical geography, an account of the state of the earth in its natural condition—its mountain-chains, ocean-currents, distribution of plants and animals, conditions of climate, &c.; Physical truth, the agreement of thought with what exists in nature ”

“ The first great agent which the analysis of natural phenomena offers to our consideration, more frequently and prominently than any other, is force. Its effects are either, 1st, to counteract the exertion of opposing force, and thereby to maintain equilibrium ”

“ If a body impinge upon another, and by its force change the motion of the other, that body also (because of the equality of the mutual pressure) will undergo an equal change, in its own motion, towards the contrary part. ”

“ Natural forces.—Such natural agencies for producing wealth are seen in the simple properties of material bodies, such as the metals or woods or grains or fruits or flowers possess. We secure these properties for our uses. Gravity, sound, heat, light, electricity, chemical affinity, crystallization, even life itself, are names for certain forms of energy in nature which men are using more or less to meet their wants. ”

“ The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting, by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavours to persevere in its present state, whether it be of rest, or of moving uniformly forward in a right line. ”

“ Matter is Force.—The foregoing considerations lead us to the very important conclusion, that matter is [366] essentially force, and nothing but force; that matter, as popularly understood, does not exist, and is, in fact, philosophically inconceivable. ”

“ He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature's productions in a form adapted to his own wants. ”

“ The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed. ”

“ But now I knew it was by forces within the earth that the lava was poured out, and that the waves which rolled the pebbles were driven by the wind and the wind by the sun’s heat. And the forces within the earth and the heat within the sun come from still further within. Inward, always inward, the search for the original energy and law carried my mind, for He whose will is the source of all force, and whose thought is the source of all law is on the inside of the universe. The kingdom of God is within you. ”

“ The theory proposed is based upon the accepted scientific principle that the law of force and energy is of universal application in nature, and that animal life is one of the outlets through which solar energy is dissipated. ”

“ Nature prompts a purely epicurean creed, and the logic of physical science binds it down upon the understandings of men; for suppose that we should turn and fight against the force that drives us. But how can we, says the logic of physics? We are in everything at the mercy of a foreign causality, and how can we resist its sway? We are drifting before the breath of nature, and can the wave turn against the gale that is impelling it, and refuse to flow? ”

“ We see that the sum of Nature’s energies is constant; that all the manifestations of force are but the transference of power from one position to another. And we have recognized the material source of all our terrestrial energies in the sun. ”

“ What a vast variety of appearances in nature depend on this one? The self-balanced earth hangs upon its centre; the mountains are set fast; there is a perpetual flux and reflux of the sea; vapours continually arise; the clouds are balanced till by their own weight they descend in rain; animals breathe and move; the heavenly bodies hold their stations, and go on in their constant course, by the force of gravity, after the ordinance of that wisdom which appointed them this law. ”

“ In the history of the evolution of the cosmos, the forces of Nature have appeared successively and suddenly when conditions became favorable. There was a time in the history of the earth when only physical forces existed, chemical affinity being held in abeyance by the intensity of the heat.41 By gradual cooling, chemical affinity at a certain stage came into being—was born, a new form of force, with new and peculiar phenomena, though doubtless derived from the preceding. ”

“ What reason have you for accepting that, to other forms unknown and yet transparent to this energy, your sunshine may not be as intangible as the ether of space is to man? What reason have you to believe that a force torrent is not circulating to and from the sun and earth, inappreciable to man, excepting the mere trace of this force which, modified by contact action with matter appears as heat, light, and other force expressions? ”

“ In the former life is produced by changes that take place in matter, under the influence of those forces of nature called heat, light, electricity, and chemism; by the latter theory all these forces are present and act under the influence of a potent force called life. ”

“ In considering the study of physical phenomena, not merely in its bearings on the material wants of life, but in its general influence on the intellectual advancement of mankind, we find its noblest and most important result to be a knowledge of the chain of connection, by which all natural forces are linked together, and made mutually dependent upon each other; and it is the perception of these relations that exalts our views and ennobles our enjoyments. ”

“ I then endeavoured to show that it is more especially in the thorough conformity with law which natural phenomena and natural products exhibit, and in the comparative ease with which laws can be stated, that this difference exists. ”

“ We may illustrate these general considerations by means of two examples, namely, the conservation of energy and the principle of evolution.
(1) Let us begin with the conservation of energy, or, as Herbert Spencer used to call it, the persistence of force. He says: [21]
"Before taking a first step in the rational interpretation of Evolution, it is needful to recognise, not only the facts that Matter is indestructible and Motion continuous, but also the fact that Force persists. ”

“ A Dead View of Dead Worlds.—Pausing to consider the received theory of force, as an explanation of the causes of the world—creation, we shall find that it fails to meet the high promises it vauntingly makes.
According to the received theory of force, every manifestation of power and energy on the earth is originally derived from the sun. The growth of plants and animals, and all the activities displayed by the latter, are derived from their food, which was produced by the light and heat of the sun. ”

“ We are therefore not yet quite ready to resolve the universe of physical forces into the similitude of the mythical mill-stream, which, flowing round a little hill, came back and fed its own pond. Nevertheless, we believe the physicists have pretty generally agreed to assume as a law of Nature what they call the conservation of force, the principle we have been endeavoring to explain. ”

“ You will then readily understand, that the heavy material to which surface-bred mortals allude as probably constituting the interior of the earth, is, in fact, nothing but the manifestation of a matter-supporting force, as exemplified in the sphere of attractive energy, the seat of which we are soon to encounter on [Pg 338] our journey. Likewise the mutual attraction of the heavenly bodies is not a property solely of their material part, but an expression in which both the force-spheres and the matter collected thereon take part. ”

“ In opposition to gravity its molecules had ascended, diverged into branches, and budded into innumerable leaves. What caused them to do so—a power external to themselves, or an inherent force? Science rejects the outside builder ”

“ We are therefore compelled by common-sense to ask when we consider Nature, What is the force or power at the back of her, which first set her going, and whence she draws the capability of performing the operations which we find her performing every day; that force or power which must be the ultimate origin of everything that is in the world? This is the great fundamental problem which the student of Nature has to face, and beside it all others fade into insignificance. ”

“ As world is balanced against world in the [Pg 408] universe, so in the human fabric, in the vegetable structure, in the crystallized gem, or in the rude rock, force is weighed against force, and the balance hangs in tranquillity. ”