"Sir Isaac Newton : Optics or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions and Colours of Light. 1717. ...The Query [XXXIst, termed 'Elective Attractions,'] commences by suggesting that the attractive powers of small particles of bodies may be capable of producing the great part of the phenomena of nature:—For it is well known that bodies act one upon another by the attractions of gravity, magnetism and electricity; and these instances shew the tenor and course of nature, and make it not improbable, but that there may be more attractive powers than these. For nature is very consonant and conformable to herself. ... The parts of all homogeneal hard bodies, which fully touch one another, stick together very strongly. And for explaining how this may be, some have invented hooked atoms, which is begging the question; and others tell us, that bodies are glued together by Rest: that is, by an occult quality, or rather by nothing: and others, that they stick together by conspiring motions, that is by relative Rest among themselves. I had rather infer from their cohesion, that their particles attract one another by some force, which in immediate contact is exceeding strong, at small distances performs the chemical operations above-mentioned, and reaches not far from the particles with any sensible effect."

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