The motion at last became infinitely
slight, but cannot be proved to have stopped. The motion of
Newton's comet at aphelion may be equally slight. To
evolutionists may be left the processes of evolution; to
historians the single interest is the law of reaction between
force and force -- between mind and nature -- the law of
progress.
The great division of history into phases by Turgot and Comte
first affirmed this law in its outlines by asserting the unity of
progress, for a mere phase interrupts no growth, and nature shows
innumerable such phases. The development of coal-power in the
nineteenth century furnished the first means of assigning closer
values to the elements; and the appearance of supersensual forces
towards 1900 made this calculation a pressing necessity; since
the next step became infinitely serious.
A law of acceleration, definite and constant as any law of
mechanics, cannot be supposed to relax its energy to suit the
convenience of man. No one is likely to suggest a theory that
man's convenience had been consulted by Nature at any time, or
that Nature has consulted the convenience of any of her
creations, except perhaps the Terebratula. In every age man has
bitterly and justly complained that Nature hurried and hustled
him, for inertia almost invariably has ended in tragedy.
Resistance is its law, and resistance to superior mass is futile
and fatal.
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