Truth and Error or the Science of Intellection/Chapter 5

by John Wesley Powell

CHAPTER V

PROCESSES OR THE PROPERTIES OF GEONOMIC BODIES

The particles and bodies of the universe are fundamentally classified in six groups, as follows: (1) the particles of the ether, the science of which I call ethronomy; (2) the bodies and particles of the stars, the science of which is astronomy; (3) the bodies and particles of the earth, the science of which I call geonomy; (4) the bodies and particles of plants, the science of which I call phytonomy; (5) the bodies and particles of animals, the science of which I call zoönomy; (6) the bodies which are invented by men, the science of which I call demonomy.

I shall not write special chapters about ethronomy and astronomy, and shall consider demonomy in an incidental way and reserve it for a future volume; but I must devote a chapter severally to geonomy, phytonomy, and zoönomy, in order that we may discover something more about the nature of affinity and see if there are other properties which will require for their explanation more than the five essentials.

I

The earth is composed of four bodies surrounded by the ether.

First, there is a central nucleus constituting the principal mass.

Second, there is a crust of structurally disposed rock surrounding- the nucleus, the thickness of which is comparatively small.

Third, there is an aqueous body surrounding the rocky crust, through which the islands rise, the largest of which are called continents. On these islands there are many lakes and rivers which ramify into innumerable brooks, creeks and rills.

Fourth, there is an aërial mantle of air extending to a limit which is not well determined.

Fifth, these four bodies, one outside the other, in succession, are surrounded by the ether.

The earth is thus composed of encapsulated globes enclosing a nucleus and bathed in ether, to designate which certain definitive terms are needed. I shall, therefore, speak of the nucleus, the rocky crust or crust, the aqueous envelope or envelope, and the aërial mantle or mantle, and shall call them all spheres. For the sake of clearer distinction, these spheres may be called (1) the centrosphere; (2) the lithosphere; (3) the hydrosphere, and (4) the atmosphere. It must be observed that the ether is common to all of the celestial bodies, and perhaps penetrates them as it does the earth.

The centrosphere is the chief mass and has a density of 5.6. By reason of this great specific gravity, which is about twice that of the rocky crust, it is often supposed to be metallic. Geologic facts in a vast system lead to the induction that the centrosphere does not exist in the solid state; if it is metallic the weight reduces it to a trans-solid condition. To this condition the form of the earth testifies, as it is an oblate spheroid assuming the figure of a fluid under the combined action of gravity and rotation. These are facts which have led physicists to conclude that it must have a rigidity said to be equal to that of steel. This rigidity may be explained as a function of its rotation, revolution, and molecular motion, when the physicist and the geologist would be in substantial accord.

The theory of a metallic centrosphere seems adequately to account for the trans- solid state, as the metals are found to flow under pressure; but the molten material which from time to time is brought to the surface from the interior of the earth never reveals this metallic constitution. It may be that there is a zone of matter beneath the structural rock and overlying the metallic nucleus which is penetrated by heat, now here, now there, and only these molten rocks are extravasated; or it may be that the solid state is limited by heat in one direction and by pressure in the other in such manner that all rocks flow under great pressure as do the metals.

The stony crust has been revealed by direct penetration to a depth of more than six thousand feet, but it is indirectly revealed in many regions to a much greater depth, perhaps in extreme cases to fifty or sixty thousand feet.

The islands of dry land have all been beneath the sea at some time or other, and all show that they have been submerged more than once, some more frequently than others. During that portion of the history of the crust, which is the theater of geological investigation, these periods of submarine condition in one region always appear to be contemporaneous with periods of subaërial conditions in some other region. Thus there seem to have been regions of dry land and regions of ocean bottom coexisting with a large predominance of oceanic area.

The aqueous envelope covers the rocky crust over about three-fourths of its surface, and has an average depth of about twelve thousand feet, though in extreme cases the bottom of the sea is more than five miles below its surface, while in some few cases mountains rise to more than five miles above the level of the sea. It is certain that we are now able to study rocks which were deposited at depths much greater than that of the mean depth of the ocean, and there are many cases where rocks found on the summits of high mountains are known to have been deposited at great depths beneath the sea. Great regions of country are at one time submarine, and at another subaërial. These oscillations of upheaval and subsidence are oft-repeated in geological history, and the swing of oscillation seems to have been in some regions tens or scores of thousands of feet where they reach the maximum, and to be only tens or scores of feet at the minimum, so that the surface of the earth, in so far as it has been studied geologically, is found to give evidence of oscillations of level varying in these quantities.

These variations are geographically heterogeneous: one region may have its oscillation on a small scale, another on a large scale, the minor oscillations forming distinct geographical series and the major oscillations forming distinct geographical series; that is, one region has been subject during geological time only to minor oscillations, and another during the same time to major oscillations.

We must now more fully consider the nature of these movements. Sometimes upheaval is by anticlinal flexure, where the rocks are lifted along a line of upheaval and caused to dip away on either side in gentle or abrupt slopes which are sometimes beautifully curved; but such an upheaval often seems to be accompanied by a subsidence on the flanks. Symmetrical anticlinal flexures are not very common, but often one side slopes gently while the other is abruptly deflected. This abrupt slope is especially subject to rupture, in which case faults are substituted for flexures. Thus a block which dips gently in one direction has its margin, on the side of a fault, displaced as an abrupt escarpment. Blocks formed in this manner often careen upon their edges, so that the strata may become vertically disposed or quite overturned where the lower formed strata are found on top. Between careened blocks and flexed blocks no line of demarcation can be drawn: the same block in different parts of its course may be bent or broken, and the flexed blocks themselves be quite overturned. The rocks which are upheaved or depressed by faulting and flexing, one or both, are always found to be ruptured in line of the faults or flexures, and also transversely to them. This rupture is often minute, so that the sheets of rock are faulted and jointed and thus found in blocks of varying dimensions, but all very minute as compared with the widely spread formations from which they are broken. Thus the whole system of rocks, of igneous and aqueous origin alike, are broken into blocks by faults and ruptures, and still further divided by planes of deposition, so that the structural crust is a system of fragments sometimes with an area of many yards, other times with an area of fractions of inches. When we compare these blocks with the great area of the structural crust we find that it is but an accumulation of blocks that are to the formations what grains of sand are to the blocks. We must now realize that the structural crust nowhere has a continuous coherence; that faults, joints, and partings render it a vast body of minute and loosely accumulated fragments. All of this upheaval and subsidence with flexures, faults, joints, and partings seem to have been brought into this condition by intermittent convulsions often exhibited in earthquakes.

Having contemplated the lithosphere as a body moving in upheaval and subsidence, and shown what is about the maximum and minimum of these oscillations and their paroxysmal character, we are prepared to consider the structure of this crust.

In all geological ages volcanic eruptions have occurred and rocky material from the depths has been brought to the surface. Such appearances of lava at the surface have been very common in human history, and they appear to have been just as common in all the geological ages revealed by science. Lavas vary in chemical and mineralogical constitution, but this variation is within narrow limits. All of the mineral substances known to mankind appear, but are intimately mixed as minute ingredients. Lavas, therefore, are intimate mixtures of many substances, the average of which falls within narrow limits. It would appear from our present knowledge that the primordial surface of the earth was cooled lava and that lava has been erupted from time to time through all of the great geological ages.

Upon these cooled surfaces a new crust of rocks from below and rocks from above appears to have been spread. Wind waves and tidal waves are forever beating the lands and undermining the cliffs and distributing the materials beneath the sea. Then atmospheric agencies disintegrate the rocks and the rains wash the sands into the streams, which carry them into the lakes and into the sea. By many cognate processes the lands are worn down and the sea bottoms built up; the amount of detritus thus accumulated in zones about the meandering shores is great, so that in regions of maximum activity formations are accumulated thousands of feet in thickness.

The winds contribute to the material which falls into the sea; plant life also furnishes its quota; accumulations of vegetation are ultimately consolidated among the formations as beds of coal; and animal life adds to the marine formations, for corals, shells, and bones are all brought to be buried in the sand, and often extensive formations of calcareous matter are thus produced. From these sources the sedimentary rocks are brought to be mingled with the eruptive rocks and intercalated among them, while in turn they are thrust between the sedimentary rocks.

Layers of rock of sedimentary origin appearing as strata are commingled with other masses of rock of volcanic origin which come from the interior. Sometimes the lava flows under or between the sedimentary strata. When great masses of lava are found in these conditions they are called lacolites. Thinner sheets are called intrusive rocks. Beds poured over the surface are called coulees. The floods of lava come through fissures and fill them both below and above coulees, intrusions, and lacolites; such fissure formations are called dikes. Where the lava comes forth in volcanoes, the orifices are filled with molten rock which consolidates and are then called chimneys. Great bodies of lava are ejected by some volcanoes as scoria and ashes, and often the ashes are minutely comminuted; the expulsion of such material is doubtless due to the production of gases and vapors, especially of steam, and the comminution is probably due to the explosive actions of particles of water expanded into steam. Great volcanic cones are often formed by the piles of scoria and ashes which are extravasated, and the ashes themselves when highly comminuted are drifted by the wind, sometimes far away from the locus of eruption. Beds of ashes and scoria formed in this manner are called tuff. So the bodies of rock formed by eruption are commingled with the bodies formed by sedimentation, and all are known as formations. Both the sedimentaries and the eruptives undergo a further change, which to a greater or less extent obscures their origin, for the original formations are metamorphosed, that is, recrystallized and lithified; so that the planes of sedimentation are partly or largely obscured and the beds of lacolites, intrusive sheets, coulees, dikes, chimneys, and tuffs have a new structure imposed upon them, and are then known as metamorphic rocks.

An attempt has been made to define formations; now they must be considered in a new light.

The land areas have always been subject to degradation by rains, rivers, and waves, and the materials washed from the land have been carried into the sea and there deposited; thus the continuance of dry land area is comparatively ephemeral. Not only are the lands degraded in this manner, but when they reach the level of the sea they continue to subside; when above the sea they are speedily unloaded, but when brought to the level of the sea or nearly so the islands, though having their loads discharged, continue to sink. The regions which have received the detritus of the islands and are thus loaded by them, are elevated into the island or continental condition; thus land areas rise to be unloaded and then sink, while oceanic areas are loaded and then rise to become land areas. The extent of this upheaval and subsidence and the vertical movements, involved together with the vast transportation of material from land to sea, seems to be enormous when we contemplate the almost silent and unseen agencies by which it is accomplished.

In considering large areas of the surface of the earth, as, for example, the great continents or zones of archipelagoes, we reach certain generalizations of prime significance.

Regions of great denudation are also regions of great deposition, regions of great eruption, regions of great upheaval and subsidence, and also regions of great flexure and fracture; thus denudation and deposition, eruption and displacement (as subsidence and upheaval and as fracture and flexure) are correlated in this manner: that where there is more of one there is more of all; where there is less of one there is less of all.

Geologists have found no law, condition, or cause by which to explain these phenomena of the earth’s crust as the law of gravity explains the constitution of celestial systems. The search for this law has been almost exclusively in one direction, under the hypothesis of a cooling and contracting earth, but with the lapse of time it has been found inadequate. Attempts have been made to compute the amount of contraction supposed to result from the wrinkling of the crust of the earth in anticlines and synclines. It seems to entirely fail quantitatively. Contraction does not seem to be an explanation of all or even the chief phenomena which we have briefly set forth. When this hypothesis was considered, flexion seemed to be the chief method of displacement; now we know that fracturing and faulting is the chief method in regions of maximum action. When inclined rocks are studied they seem to have been stretched, as evidenced in the elongation of particles transverse to the strike, and they seem further to have been stretched by the opening of fissures and joints. Altogether it may be affirmed that displacement does not teach the doctrine of a contracting earth, or, if that statement is too strong, it does not give evidence of a sufficient contraction necessary to the hypothesis, and it also fails to explain the concomitant phenomena.

With this hypothesis another is associated, namely, that the centrosphere of the earth is metallic, for which no vestige of inductive evidence has yet appeared; and the stupendous fact remains that the centrosphere has more than twice the density of the crust. All eruptive rocks which come into the purview of science are found to have an average constitution which is about the same as that of the sedimentary rocks. It is found by experiment in the industrial arts that under pressure metallic and other substances flow; and geology teaches that all of the other rocks are secularly deformed under differential pressures, so that rocks highly metamorphosed in this manner are twisted, contorted, and kneaded into new shapes. Finally, there is now abundant geologic evidence to show that the faulting near the surface appears as flexure at greater depths, and finally that flexure appears as molecular readjustment at still greater depths, expressed in slaty structure where the particles of the rocks are rearranged in parallel planes.

The metals of the normal condition have great density, but in a pure condition are found only in exceedingly minute quantities; all the other rocks have a small density. If we now assume that all rocks flow tinder pressure, that the critical point is variable and that the modulus of compression is also variable, being greater for the lighter rocks and less for the heavier, and that this modulus is greatly accelerated at the critical point, we have a law which will regiment the facts of geonomy as the facts of astronomy are marshaled by the law of gravity.

Under this theoretic law of the accelerated modulus of compression at the critical point for different substances, subsidence and upheaval are explained. The reassumption of constitutional structure in crystallization and glassy lithification necessitates expansion, and thus upheaval is explained. When lands rise and are denuded, the process of relithification in the centrosphere continues upheaval and exposes the lands to further upheaval, and this process goes on until an equilibrium is reached at the epoch when the land is brought to the level of the sea by degradation. On the other hand, as land is loaded the subjacent crust rocks are brought within the zone of accelerated compression, and this process continues while the loading continues until it is brought to a close at the epoch when the land area from which the detritus is taken is brought to the level of the sea and transportation ended so that loading ceases.

Universal contraction by cooling must still be postulated as an agency for the destruction of equilibrium, or perhaps we may find this agency in astronomical conditions; but some such agency is necessary for the continuation of the process. But the changing of material from the interior to the surface and the changing of load from one district to another by transportation under the law of the accelerated modulus of compression is the principal agency of upheaval and subsidence.

This doctrine was proposed several years ago by myself, but has received little attention except among a few geologists engaged in this branch of research; from its reception by these gentlemen I am encouraged to repropound it.

The hydrosphere requires a little further consideration. The water evaporates from the surface aided by a variety of conditions which cannot here be considered; as vapor it floats in the air; then the rocks by atmospheric agencies are reduced to dust and blown by the winds and seized by the vapor, so that particles often become the nuclei of raindrops. The falling of the water restores the particles of dust to the crust. On the other hand the water penetrates the rocky crust by the innumerable fissures which have already been described and along the partings of the rocks and among the sands of which they are composed. In a condition of vapor it is probable that it penetrates through all of the stony crust. Thus it falls into the earth by streams, by capillary channels, and into the metamorphic masses at great depths, where it assumes the role of an agent of rearrangement in crystallization. There is much evidence to show that this finally becomes the agent of explosion when the rocky masses are thrust by the weight of superincumbent rock into the centrosphere, for this seems to be the explanation of the tufaceous material thrown out by volcanoes. This penetrating water becomes the agent of another process which goes on in the crust on a vast scale, for the waters, especially when they become thermal, dissolve certain substances and redeposit them as they are evaporated above and as they become waters of crystallization below. Especially are the metals treated in this manner, giving rise to metallic lodes by solution in the water and their subsequent evaporation and crystallization. The formation of mineral lodes in this manner is a long but interesting chapter in the story of geology. We now have a condensed but perhaps sufficient account of the structure of the earth in spheres and their interaction in the production of formations. We must now consider these formations abstractly in the light of the essentials as they are changed in relations of quantities and categories into formations.

II

In the deeply seated rocks substances are transmuted by recomposition, secularly accomplished by changes in heat and changes in pressure which produce chemical reactions. As the rocks sink under the materials piled upon them by extravasation and deposition, they are faulted and jointed, and this permits the water to flow in underground courses; these flowing waters dissolve certain substances on their way down, and deposit them again, filling the joints and fault seams with deposits accumulated from higher grounds. As the upper and lower surface of the crust is approached the rate of change in the substances is increased until these surfaces are reached. At the upper surface the disintegrated rocks form an overplacement of soils which undergo such chemical reaction that the substances of vegetal life are produced. This material, exposed for longer or shorter periods, is transported by streams to lakes or to the sea and sinks to the bottom, where it is recombined into various substances, especially as carbonate of lime, chloride of sodium, other salts, clay and coal. All of this transmutation is a numerical change in the relation of the atoms to the molecules of the substances developed. Let us call it metalogisis.

The new substances which appear in the changes wrought by the agencies which have been described are segregated in the deeply seated rocks as crystals. Those which are formed in the fissures appear as bodies of ore and those that are washed from the surface and deposited at the bottoms of lakes and seas are arranged in strata, but as the waters themselves dissolve the substances of the surface they are often recombined and crystallized. Thus it is that the new substances are segregated and the new mass of comminuted material has the new kinds developed in this manner, separated more or less distinctly from the kinds of the original mass. Thus metalogisis is the genesis of new kinds and their segregation by a succession of changes.

Thus we see that in the processes that go on in the crust of the earth new kinds of substances are developed and new kinds of formations produced, and the chemist finds these substances to be arranged in series, and the geologist finds that sedimentary formations are arranged in series. So in geonomy, kinds are developed into series.

III

With the change in kind comes the change in form which is accomplished by minute increments. When the mineral substances are recombined in the deeply seated rocks they are slowly metamorphosed by recrystallization and rearrangement in slaty structure. The ores are deposited in mineral lodes and to some extent crystallized. The sedimentary formations are arranged in layers or strata, and are thus seriated. Heavier and larger materials are sooner deposited, lighter and smaller materials are slowly thrown down, and the currents of the water carry them farther away from the shore; thus there is an assorting process which is still farther extended by the deposition of materials in solution. In this manner the structure of the rocky cellate is constantly undergoing metamorphosis.

The slates are seriated and the sedimentary strata are seriated. Thus kinds are seriated as forms revealed in structure and figure. The elements of structure are set forth in a more elaborate form in structural geology when slaty structure, lode structure and stratified structure are the themes, and where flexures, faults, fractures and displacements are set forth in describing the structure of mountains, plateaus, hills and plains as slates, lodes and strata, giving figure to the topographic features and the endless variety and beauty of the topographic landscape. This figure is revealed in valleys with stream channels and canyons.

In plains that are sometimes baselevels being asymptotic and sometimes surmounted with monadnock elevations, in plateaus with abrupt escarpments and fringing hills, in mountains which are often systems of ridges carved by gorges into peaks or elevated as volcanic cones, all spread with a parterre of forest, meadow, field and flower through which flow rivers, creeks, brooks and rills, where cataracts and cascades are found and where fountains issue from the rocks and lakes are nestled that mirror the vegetal-clad shores; while away to the polar region the ice gathers, and the glaciers break into icebergs and float down the sea, or following the land, carve valleys and build moraines. All these things and many more constitute the theme of physiography, which is a description of the figure of the oblate spheroid. A succession of changes of form we call metamorphosis.

IV

In the change which comes in the development of the rocky cellate, forces become energies; that is, pari passu with metalogisis and metamorphosis there is metaphysisis; and metaphysisis is energy and work as reciprocals. The same fact is sometimes expressed in another form. The spherical members of the earth and the formations of which the crust is composed exhibit strains and stresses in their interaction and these strains and stresses produce changes. The varying heat of the ether by contraction and expansion rends the rocks and is an agency for their disintegration. The ether evaporates the water, the wind carries it about and fills the air with dust, and the dust and vapor again fall to the earth as rain, and the falling becomes a process of disintegration in part, but mainly an agency for the transportation of material of the rocky cellate by sheets of water into streams and by streams into the larger bodies. Then gravity acts as a process, throwing the load of transportation to the bottom in assorted layers. Then the percolating waters exhibit new processes of transmutation. With all of this there go the processes of strains and stresses in the rocks themselves, some formations being relieved of pressure and others having pressure added, and all these work their changes. Then there are the processes of extravasation consequent upon the relief and addition of the strains and stresses.

All of the processes which are here but partly enumerated are intermittent. The ethereal processes change hourly and daily with the longitude, and vary with the latitude. The winds blow and are calm; evaporation goes on until critical conditions are reached when storms fall; floods are also variable, and floods produce effects in geometrical ratio. The pressures of formations have their accelerations intermittent, so that stresses are revealed by earthquakes, and the fractures caused by earthquakes produce the channels for eruption, and add to pressures and stresses.

There is a change in hydrostatic pressure of such importance that it must not be neglected. The waters that are wedged between the stony blocks and thrust into pervious strata and absorbed into all of the rocks by processes of crystallization are subject to the same intermittent activities.

Again, on the streams of great floods, great blocks are loaded, and as these blocks become larger they are the more efficient as hammers in the corrasion of stream channels both vertically and laterally; so that glaciers load themselves with rocks and become the agencies of corrasion by which valleys are carved.

All of these processes are the work of gravity, heat, light, electricity and magnetism, and combined they produce a set of chemical changes which, as a mode of motion, we call chemism, which must be distinguished from affinity, for affinity means choice, while chemism means energy, and valency expresses numerical proportions. Heat produces expansion, gravity produces contraction in the materials of the rocky crust, and, conjoined, they produce chemism. This geochemism is the fundamental energy.

Stresses and strains are produced in celestial bodies as exhibited in their spheroidal structure, but chemism appears in the particles of which celestial bodies are composed, and at present we cannot study these particles in any other celestial body than that of the earth; chemism is a new mode of motion exhibited to us only in the earth, though we may conjecture that it exists in other globes if we could examine into their geonomy. A succession of changes of force is metaphysisis.

V

We have next to consider a succession of causes and a succession of effects. The rill rolls down the declivity; by the process of corrasion a channel is cut, and this effect is a continuous deepening of the channel. The cause is a process and the effect is a process; a serial causation, therefore, is a double process, one of cause and the other effect. The water on its way down the rill transports the abraded rocks; thus there is a constant process of cause in the flowing of the water, and a constant process of effect in the transportation of the load. When the rill reaches the foot of the declivity by the change of grade in the stream it is no longer able to carry the load, and it is deposited. The constant process of discharge from the water results in a constant process of deposition upon the bottom. It is in this manner that causation is continuous, and such a causation is a double process. A serial force is a process. In energy the work done by force is proportional to the time in which the force acts, but in the process this law does not necessarily obtain, for cause is not wholly a question of force but it is also a question of form and kind.

The rate at which the stream corrades its channel is due in part to the mass of the water and the declivity of the stream, that is, energy, but it is also dependent upon the form of the rocks and their chemical constitution. If they are easily disintegrated they are loaded the more, and the sedimentary particles as the instruments of corrasion are multiplied. Much depends upon the constitution of the rocks. If they dissolve in minute particles they corrade less; if the particles are larger they corrade more. Thus the rate of corrasion is a function of force, of form and of kind, and hence there can be no equality between the work done as an effect and the energy as a cause. Again in transportation of the material the rate of transportation depends upon the rate at which the supply is furnished, and not upon the force of the waters, for the supply is load and the load adds its own weight to the gravitating energy. The condition of fineness in the particles constituting the load will greatly aid transportation; the larger particles will sink sooner, the smaller particles will be carried farther; the deposition will in one place be of large particles, another place of small particles; hence a new effect is produced, that of sorting the material. It has already been shown that causes are multifarious and run into an infinite regressus, and between no one of these causes and the effect does there exist the relation of equality, and because the causes are disparate from the effect there can be no equality between the cause and effect.

This is one of the strange fallacies often met, and its origin lurks in the term action and reaction when bodies in motion collide. A and B are two bodies in motion; they impinge and are mutually deflected. Now if we consider A before the deflection and after it, we have the two directions separated by an event. The same is true of B before the collision and B after it. At the collision there is a double cause involved in the incident motions of A and B before the collision, and a double effect in their reflected motions. As force there is a mutual action and reaction, then there is equality existing between them. As cause and effect there is a mutual causation. The angle of incidence equals the angle of deflection; that is, there is equality between angle and angle as relations of form; but this is not a relation of cause and effect as such. We must find the cause of the collision, and then we may find what the collision causes. Change the conditions in the two particles; let one of them be easily crushed and the other not, then one ball will rebound and the other will be shattered. Now action and reaction as force will still be equal, but cause and effect will be different conditions; one body has its course changed, the other body is shattered into fragments, and these fragments take different courses. Thus it is seen that between cause and effect equality cannot be asserted. There is no equality between a word of command and prompt obedience to the command. There is no equality between sunrise and the opening of the morning-glory; there is no equality between the story of the Bonnie Brier Bush and my emotion. It is always abuse of logic to assert that equality exists between cause and effect, although the first mode of causation has that characteristic as change of direction.

When we consider force as force there is always equality between action and reaction; but when we consider force as cause, then no relation of equality exists between it and effect. A unit of force may raise a hundred pounds to a given height; two units of force may raise two hundred pounds to the same height. Thus the work is proportional to the force; but we are not considering a relation between forces but a relation between cause and effect. When in lifting the weight we consider it as an effect and wish to refer to its causes, they are found to be in the machinery by which the effect was produced, in the application of the force to produce the effect, and in the origin of this force. That is to say, whenever we are examining the relation between cause and effect we are examining into conditions or states and not into equalities or inequalities of force. When a weight of a hundred pounds is raised a unit of altitude, the effect is a new position, and the force employed, which was one of the causes of the new position, is an action equal to the lifting of the weight as reaction. But the cause might have produced a very different effect than that of lifting the weight; the effect might have been the breaking of the rope; then the cause is the force and the effect the fracture. Cause and effect are not relations of force to force, form to form, nor kind to kind, but they are relations of time to time as they are affected by force, form and kind. There can be no cause without force, form and kind; that is, we cannot analyze cause but can only abstract it. We cannot put cause in one basket, force in a second, form in a third, and kind in a fourth; and this is only a repetition of what I have said about unity, extension, speed and persistence.

A process of causality is here called metagenesis and a series of changes are produced.

We have now seen that the four essentials are still represented in the processes of geonomic bodies, and we also see the action of affinity in these bodies, and affinity itself is never revealed except as choice.