PARTICLE, in physiology, the minute part of a body, 5 Z 3a
an assemblage of which constitute all natural bodies.
It is the various arrangement and texture of these particles, with the difference of cohesion, &c. that constitute the various kinds of bodies. The smallest particles cohere with the strongest attraction, and compose bigger particles of weaker cohesion; and many of these cohering compose bigger particles, whose vigour is still weaker; and hereupon the operations in chemistry, and the colours of natural bodies, depend, and which, by cohering, compose bodies of sensible bulk. The cohesion of the particles of matter, the Epicureans imagined, was effected by means of hooked atoms; the Aristotelians, by rest; but Sir Isaac Newton shews, that it is done by means of a certain power, whereby the particles mutually attract and tend towards each other. By this attraction of the particles, he shews, that most of the phenomena of the lesser bodies are affected, as those of the heavenly bodies are, by the attraction of gravity.