NOMOS. 



CHAPTER I. 



SEARCH AFTER A CENTRAL LAW IN THE PHE- 

 NOMENA OF ARTIFICIAL FORCE. 



THE researches of late years have shown that the 

 artificial manifestations of electricity, light, heat, and 

 many other agents, are connected in a very intimate 

 manner ; and the question of the present day is, not 

 whether they are thus connected, but 

 ^between" whether we are to agree with Mr. Grove 

 eiectridt * n re g ar ding them as reciprocally trans- 



light, heat, mutable. Or rather the question is, whe- 



and other 



agents indi- ther these so-called agents are agents at 



eating the . f , . . .*** 



existence of all, for on further inquiry it is found to 



some hidden -, 11 .-, 



central law. be more easy to look upon them as signs 

 of action than as agents. Everything, 

 indeed, seems to point to a connexion which cannot 

 be severed, and which renders it impossible to detect 

 the real law of any one agent without at the same 

 time discovering the real laws of the companion 

 agents ; in other words, everything seems to point to 

 some undiscovered central law of which electricity, 

 light, heat, and the associate phenomena, are only 

 so many effects. Is there, then, such a law ? This 

 is the great question which we here propose for 

 solution, and which we will endeavour to solve by 

 analysing, first of all, the phenomena of electricity. 

 We will do this because in these phenomena we find 



