96 MEMOIR OF DR. DALTON, AND 



that "from intellect arose fire; from ether, air; from air, 

 fire and light; from light, a change being effected, comes 

 water with the quality of taste ; and from water is deposited 

 earth with the quality of smell." To fire is attributed the 

 quality of figure : Mr. Mill supposes light is meant ; to air 

 the quality of touch; to ether the quality of conveying sound. 

 Mr. Mill thinks hearing is meant. The qualities are con- 

 fused as in that Greek system, which said, fire only can 

 understand fire ; air only can understand air ; and so on.* 

 The Hindoos, also, had their four and their five elements ; 

 their eternal elements ; and the elements proceeding from the 

 will of God, to cease when he pleases. They, too, had a 

 system which made mind a substance and the affections subtle 

 bodies.f But they did not always confuse it, as is seen in 

 Menu. " He having willed to produce various beings from 

 his own divine substance, first with a thought created the 

 world." On the constitution of matter we see them speaking 

 as plainly as the Greeks ; and now on the philosophy of the 

 combination, we see an instance of still greater farsight. We 

 can readily believe that the following is very beautiful in the 

 original poetry. There is a poetical beauty even in the prose, 

 which makes it dance like the power it describes in spite of 

 the gravity and intellectual nature of the subject. 



From the poem of ShiWVn and Ferhad ; or the Divine 

 Spirit and a Human Soul Disinterestedly Pious.% " There 

 is a strong propensity which dances through every atom, and 

 attracts the minutest particle to some peculiar object; search 

 this universe from its base to its summit, from fire to air, from 

 water to earth, from all below the moon to all above the 

 celestial spheres, and thou wilt not find a corpuscle destitute 

 of that natural attractability; the very point of the first 



History of British India. By James Mill, Esq., 1848. Vol II., pp. 94-96. 

 •f Colebrooke, Asiatic Researches. Vol. IX., &c. 

 X The Works of Sir William Jones, 1799. Vol. I., pp. 170-171. 



