SIR WILLIAM CKOOKES ON PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. 197 



forces rank among residual phenomena, which attract attention onh^ 

 when science has made a certain progress. To homunculi such as we 

 havi' imagined the same effects would be of capital importance, and 

 would be rightly interpreted not as something supplementary to those 

 of general gravitation, but as due to an independent and possibly 

 antagonistic force. 



The physics of these homunculi would differ most remarkably from 

 our own. In the study of heat they would encounter difficulties prob- 

 ably insuperable. In this branch of physical investigation little can 

 l)e done unless we have the power at pleasure of raising and lowering 

 the temperature of l^odies. This requirivs the command of fire. Actual 

 man, in a rudimentary state of civilization, can heat and ignite cer- 

 tain kinds of matter b}' friction, percussion, concentrating the sun's 

 rays, etc. ; but before these operations produce actual fire they must 

 be performed upon a considerable mass of matter, otherwise the heat 

 is conducted or radiated away as rapidl}^ as produced and the point of 

 ignition seldom reached. 



Nor could it be otherwise with the chemistry of the little people, if, 

 indeed, such a science be conceived as at all possible for them. 



It can scarcely be denied that the fundamental phenomena which first 

 led mankind into chemical inquiries are those of combustion. But, as 

 we have just seen, minimized beings would be unable to produce fire 

 at will, except l)y certain chemical reactions, and would have little 

 opportunity of examining its nature. They might occasionally witness 

 forest fires, volcanic eruptions, etc. ; but such grand and catastrophic 

 phenomena, though serving to reveal to our supposed Lilliputians the 

 existence of combustion, would l)e ill suited for quiet investigation 

 into its conditions and products. Moreover, considering the impossi- 

 bility they would experience of pouring water from one test tube to 

 another, the ordinary operations of analytical chemistry and of all 

 manipulations depending on the use of the pneumatic trough would 

 remain forever a sealed book. 



Let us for a moment go to the opposite extreme and consider how 

 Nature would present itself to human beings of enormous magnitude. 

 Their difficulties and misconstructions would be of an opposite nature 

 to those experienced by pigmies. Capillary attraction and the cohesion 

 of liquids, surface tension, and the curvature of liquid surfaces near 

 their boundary, the dewdrop and the behavior of minute bodies on a 

 glo])ule of water, the flotation of metals on the surface of water, Jind 

 many other familiar phenomena, would be either ignored or unknown. 

 The homunculus able to communicate but a small momentum would 

 find all ol)jects nuich harder than they appear to us, while to a race 

 of colossals granite rocks would be but a feeble impediment. 



There would be another most remarka])le difference between such 

 enormous beings and ourselves. If we stoop and take up a pinch of 



