An Inquiry Into the Cause of Motion Or a General Theory of Physics Grounded Upon the Primary Qualities of Matter

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1781 Excerpt: ... SECTION VI ATTRACTION, nPHE many and varied opinions respecting Attraction, the word being considered under different acceptations by different writers, renders it necessary to take a short review of the subject as it now stands, for which purpose the following is quoted from what is said under this head by the Author of the new Cyclopædia Attraction, in Mechanics, the act of a moving power, "whereby a moveable is drawn or brought nearer to the "mover. "As Action and Reaction are always equal, and contrary; it follows, that, in all attraction, the mover is drawn towards ' the moveable, as much as the moveable towards the mover. L Attraction, Attraction, or Attractive force, in the ancient physics, "denotes a natural power supposed to be inherent in certain "bodies, whereby they act: on other distant bodies, and draw "them towards themselves. "This the Peripatetics call the motion ofattraction-, and on many "occasions Suction; and produce various instances where they "suppose it to obtain.--Thus the air in respiration is taken in, ac"cording to them, by attraction of suction; so is the smoke through "a pipe of tobacco; and the milk out of the mother's breast: thus also it is that the blood and humours rise in a cupping-glass, "water in a pump, and smoke in chimnies; so vapours and ex"halations are attracted by the sun, iron by the magnet, straws w by amber, and electrical bodies, 8cc. But the later philosophers "generally explode the notion of attraction; asserting, that a body "cannot act where it is not; and that all motion is performed "by a mere impulsion,--Accordingly, most of the effects which the ancients attributed to this unknown part of attraction, the "moderns have discovered to be owing to more sensible and "obvious causes; particularl...