Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- PART I THE UNKNOWABLE
- PART II LAWS OF THE KNOWABLE
- I LAWS IN GENERAL
- II THE LAW OF EVOLUTION
- III THE LAW OF EVOLUTION (CONTINUED)
- IV THE CAUSES OF EVOLUTION
- V SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE
- VI THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER
- VII THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION
- VIII THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE
- IX THE CORRELATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES
- X THE DIRECTION OF MOTION
- XI THE RHYTHM OF MOTION
- XII THE CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO EVOLUTION
- XIII THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS
- XIV THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS
- XV DIFFERENTIATION AND INTEGRATION
- XVI EQUILIBRATION
XIV - THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- PART I THE UNKNOWABLE
- PART II LAWS OF THE KNOWABLE
- I LAWS IN GENERAL
- II THE LAW OF EVOLUTION
- III THE LAW OF EVOLUTION (CONTINUED)
- IV THE CAUSES OF EVOLUTION
- V SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE
- VI THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER
- VII THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION
- VIII THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE
- IX THE CORRELATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES
- X THE DIRECTION OF MOTION
- XI THE RHYTHM OF MOTION
- XII THE CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO EVOLUTION
- XIII THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS
- XIV THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS
- XV DIFFERENTIATION AND INTEGRATION
- XVI EQUILIBRATION
Summary
§ 116. To the cause of increasing complexity set forth in the last chapter, we have in this chapter to add another. Though secondary in order of time, it is scarcely secondary in order of importance. Even in the absence of the cause already assigned, it would necessitate a change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous; and joined with it, it makes this change both more rapid and more involved. To come in sight of it, we have but to pursue a step further, that conflict between force and matter already delineated. Let us do this.
When a uniform aggregate is subject to a uniform force, we have seen that its constituents, being differently conditioned, are differently modified. But while we have contemplated the various parts of the aggregate as thus undergoing unlike changes, we have not yet contemplated the unlike changes simultaneously produced on the various parts of the incident force. These must be as numerous and important as the others. Action and re-action being equal and opposite, it follows that in differentiating the parts on which it falls in unlike ways, the incident force must itself be correspondingly differentiated. Instead of being as before, a uniform force, it must thereafter be a multiform force—a group of dissimilar forces. A few illustrations will make this truth manifest.
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- Information
- First Principles , pp. 388 - 415Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1862