THE NATURE OF MOTION.
Last of all comes the question, — What is Motion? Divesting our minds of all concrete associations and looking at the phenomenon in itself, we arrive at the following unfamiliar conclusion.
Motion is the Mode by which Energy (or Separation) is transferred from one portion of matter to another, and ultimately from matter to the ethereal medium.
When the Motion is simply separative we see this in a moment. A ball fired upward, a weight carried to a height, or an atom disengaged from a compound, show us motion as equivalent to separation, in its naked form. When we look at Motion along a line at equal distances from the attractive centres — as in the case of a locomotive running along a level — we do not at first see how the Energy can be considered as separative. But as soon as we reflect that the Energy required for the purpose is entirely relative to the resistances which must be overcome — as soon as we recollect that if there were no friction, the initial Energy would carry on the moving body for ever, and that where there is little friction the moving body continues to proceed for a long period in the same direction without conspicuous loss of speed — we see that each new increment of energy from the burning coal is used up — not in intensifying the rate of motion, but in overcoming friction, in wearing down the projecting particles of the machinery and the rails, in producing heat, and so, ultimately, in setting up separative actions. This case leads us on to that of a planet having orbital Energy, or a molecule having Vibratory Motion. In both these instances the substance to which the Energy is imparted is far subtler and more tenuous, being in fact the ethereal medium. Yet in both we see that as their Energy is lost, they aggregate with attractive bodies, and we thus perceive the separative nature of their motion. At the same time we see it as a mere incident in the transference of separation from matter to ether. Lastly, in the case of aggregative movements, we see that the Motion replaces for a time the separation of masses, molecules, atoms, or electrical units, as they rush together; but we also see the same separation afterwards transmitted to some other form of matter or to the ether, as heat, light, electrical separation, or some other form of separative Energy.
Again, in every case, the ether is the final gainer of Energy, and every Motion is only an incident which ultimately effects the transfer of Energy (i.e. separation) from matter to ether. On the surface of our earth, where so large an amount of Energy is being daily poured down by the sun, this truth is masked by the fact that new Energy continually replaces the old. But if we leave out of consideration the accretions thus made to our store of Energy, we shall see that every Motion originates in an aggregation — whether it be through the fall of a body at a height, or the burning of coal in an engine, or the oxidation of food in an animal body — and that after the motion has taken place, there is a less total of Potential Energy on the earth, while the Kinetic Energy has been transferred, in whole or in part, to the ether. This principle, here briefly alluded to in the abstract, will be fully developed in the portion of this work devoted to concrete phenomena. Far more evident, however, is this truth when we look to the wider sidereal system. There, we see at once that all Kinetic Energy is the correlative of an aggregation, and that the separative Power, which once divided the ponderable matter composing the various suns, is now being radiated off, as they aggregate, in the form of ethereal Kinetic Energy — or, as we oftener say, of Light and Heat. This Energy, when it falls upon such a mass as our own planet, at once displays its separative nature by such phenomena as the melting of ice, the raising of aqueous vapour, the formation of winds, and the production of living organisms. These questions, again, will be fully discussed in the Second Part of this book.
Briefly, we may say that the shortest formula to embrace the facts of Kinetic Energy is the following: — Motion is the redistribution of separations.
We have now completed our rapid survey of the abstract principles of Transcendental Dynamics, and may proceed to consider their concrete manifestations. Before doing so, it was the author’s original intention to glance briefly in a separate Part at certain other subordinate facts connected with the development of the subject. The Laws laid down in the present First Part mostly refer to that department of science known as Physics; though we have treated incidentally of many facts commonly looked upon as chemical and electrical. A special Part ought to have been dedicated to a brief examination of certain qualitative propositions in Chemistry and Electrical Science: but this task, unfortunately, the author has found impossible of achievement with his existing knowledge. He therefore proceeds at once to the concrete manifestations.