5. The primary force of repulsion is made up of _impulses recurring with an immeasurable rapidity_. This is no new hypothesis. In all treatises on Mechanics, gravity and all incessant forces are conceived to consist of an indefinitely great number of impulses taking effect in a finite interval of time.[293] "The ever-recurring pulses of the primary cosmical force, emanating from all the atoms of the one primary form of matter, are directly _consumed_ in communicating opposite movements, or virtual movements, to every atom in the universe. It is, as I conceive, because in the existing condition of things the distribution of matter is unequal in different directions round a point, and therefore the partial interception of the impulses of the cosmical force along the different lines of direction is unequal, that an effective gravitating force exists.[294] The entire amount of the cosmical force consumed in any interval of time is the amount intercepted by all the atoms of matter, and is independent of the motions that result from the inequalities just noticed. Gravitation, and molecular and chemical attractions, which originate in the gravitation of electric ether toward atoms of ordinary matter, are then _derivative_ forces incidental to the direct actions exerted by the cosmical force upon the atoms."[295] In a communication from Professor Norton to the author, he furnishes the following further exposition of his theory: "If, as I conceive, the primary atomic force is of the nature of a perpetual emanation from each atom, and is expended in the act of producing motion, we must thence infer that the atom is an entity through which a stream of force is _perpetually flowing from the Infinite Source of all power and all existence_. That the primary force is a force of repulsion, and that the immediate source of all the forces that are known to take effect upon ordinary matter is the action of recurring repulsive impulses upon the atoms of the universal ether, and their subsequent propagation and partial interception by the atoms which they encounter, I infer from the fact that this conception furnishes a rational explanation of all the known forces and phenomena of inanimate nature." It will thus be seen that the theory of Professor Norton gives no countenance to the materialistic tendencies of the physical science of the age. He is decidedly of the opinion that "force is _not_ an inherent and essential attribute of matter," and he "devoutly acknowledges that in following the chain of cause and effect into the precincts of that most deeply hidden of all mysteries, the origin of force, _we have come into the presence of the Infinite Spirit who puts forth unceasingly, from every point in the realms of space, his creative and sustaining power upon the subtile matter that fills all space, and is the essential substance of all worlds_."[296]