In 1837, Scottish philosopher-historian Thomas Carlyle described the members of the States-General of 1789 and the National Convention, depicted above, into which it was transformed, as " gravitating bodies", a social gravitation like description. [5] |
“Now, if we carry our thoughts from the corporeal [planetary] to the moral world, we may observe in the spirits or minds of men a like principle of [gravitational] attraction, whereby they are drawn together in communities, clubs, families, friendships, and all the various species of society.”
“The great law of molecular gravitation, the indispensable condition of existence, [is that] man tends of necessity to gravitate towards his fellow man.”
“The greater the number collected in a give space, the greater is the attractive force there exerted, as is seen to have been the case with the great cities of the ancient world, Niniveh and Babylon, Athens and Rome, and is now seen in regard to Paris and London, Vienna and Naples, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.”