-AL PHILOSOPHY. 127 



which, however, cannot exist, inasmuch as if the mutual repulsion of oxygen 

 to oxygen, and hydrogen to hydrogen, in contiguous molecules, couM be so 

 far constrained as to admit of such composition, there were no opponent 

 force to hinder their compression into the more intimate union of chemical 

 combination. And, lastly, a particle of hydrogen revolving round an oxy- 

 gen on their third outermost (i. e. innermost) spheres of repulsion, produces a 

 particle of the compound water." 



Speaking of Sir Isaac Newton's theory of chemistry, founded on some 

 fact > in astronomy, Dr. Brown says : 



" The master of astronomy and the creator of optics, he does not appear to 

 have done anything for concrete chemistry, his laboratory notwithstanding; 

 always saving and excepting his conjecture that the diamond was combusti- 

 ble because it is a strong refractor a prosperous guess which it is customary 

 to extol as sagacious, in spite of the notorious fact that there are stronger 

 refractors than that crystalline carbon, which are not combustible a whit. Irs 

 combustibility has no connection with its refractive power, in fact; and, 

 though the hypothesis was not atrociously inconsequent when it was made, 

 it is as ridiculous as illogical to admire it now. It was just one of those 

 countless little strokes of fortune which are constantly befalling the man of 

 genius and industry. In the game of discover}^, long and difficult though it 

 is, Nature always gives her darling loaded dice, because she will have him 

 win the day. But Isaac Newton has almost become the mythical man or 

 demigod of British science, owing partly to the assault of Voltaire, partly 

 to the lofty rhymes of Thomson, partly to the clangorous eloquence of Chal- 

 mers, yet chiefly, and all but entirely, to the overwhelming conceptions with 

 which his very name amazes the mind; and one of the consequences is, that 

 all sorts of trumpery stories about falling apples, as well as every kind of 

 encomium, may be heaped with impunity on the Atlantean shoulders of ' the 

 incomparable Mr. Newton,' now that the shade is divinized. If nil nisi bomnn 

 is to be "written on the tomb of the vulgar dead, after all, what shall men 

 not say or sing, if so please their uncrowned majesties, at the shrines of the 

 immortals ! " 



LIGHT AXD ELECTRICITY. 



The evidences connecting electricity and magnetism, as forces, with the 

 sun, and other bodies of our system, are, of course, different and inferior to 

 those which establish the relations of light. Yet they are now continually 

 becoming more numerous and significant. Whoever has seen the star of pure 

 and intense light which bursts forth on the approach of the charcoal points 

 completing the circuit of a voltaic battery, or the flood of light thence poured 

 by reflection over wide and distant spaces, cannot but suspect that the new 

 "fountain" thus opened to the eyes of men (and certainly not destined to 

 remain an idle and valueless gift of science) may be the same in source and 

 qualities as that higher fountain which diffuses light and heat over the whole 

 planetary system. Sir J. Herschel, who ever makes his highest speculations 

 subordinate to cautious induction, has assigned strong reasons for believing 

 the sun to be in a permanently excited electrical state. Meanwhile the moon 

 also has been found, by delicate observations and averages carefully collected^ 

 to exercise a magnetic influence on the earth, the needle expressing to hu- 

 man eye certain small variations which strictly correspond with the lunar 

 hour angle. The fact has its peculiar interest in indicating, and this not 



