Lesson xxi.] ELECTRICITY. 129 



Electric Matter, which will be drawn off by the 

 latter; but the point of a needle would draw it off 

 much sooner. 



Writers on Electricity give accounts of a variety 

 of experiments in this entertaining science, from 

 which some of the properties of the Electric Matter 

 may be deduced ; but as to its real nature philoso- 

 phers have entertained very different sentiments. 

 Some have supposed that it is the same with the 

 ether of Sir Isaac Newton, to which the attraction 

 and repulsion are ascribed ; whilst the light, smell, 

 and other sensible qualities of the fluid, are referred 

 to the grosser particles of bodies driven from them 

 by the forcible action of this ether : and other ap- 

 pearances are explained by means of a subtile me- 

 dium diffused over the surfaces of all bodies, and 

 resisting the exit and entrance of the ether; which 

 medium, it is supposed, is the same with the Elec- 

 tric Fluid, and is more rare on the surfaces of con- 

 ductors, and more dense and resisting on those of 

 Electrics. But Dr. Priestley (whose abilities and 

 penetration, as a philosopher, are two well known 

 to need any encomium from me,) objects, in some 

 measure, to the hypothesis above recited, and gives 

 it as his opinion, founded on experiments, that the 

 Electric Matter either is phlogiston, or contains it 

 since he found that both produced similar effects. 

 Mr. Henley also apprehends, that the Electric 

 Fluid is a modification of that element, which, in 

 its quiescent stale, is called phlogiston; in its first 

 active state, Electricity j and, when violently agi- 

 tated, Fire. 



G 5 This 



