Page:On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other.djvu/20

It is my purpose to-day to make you acquainted with some of these powers; not the vital ones, but some of the more elementary, and, what we call, physical powers: and, in the outset, what can I do to bring to your minds a notion of neither more nor less than that which I mean by the word power, or force? Suppose I take this sheet of paper, and place it upright on one edge, resting against a support before me (as the roughest possible illustration of something to be disturbed), and suppose I then pull this piece of string which is attached to it. I pull the paper over. I have therefore brought into use a power of doing so—the power of my hand carried on through this string in a way which is very remarkable when we come to analyse it; and it is by means of these powers conjointly (for there are several powers here employed) that I pull the paper over. Again, if I give it a push upon the other side, I bring into play a power, but a very different exertion of power from the former; or, if I take now this bit of shell-lac [a stick of shell-lac about 12 inches long and 1½ in diameter] and rub it with flannel, and