ON ALL CONDITIONS OF MATTER. O 



(lucing tliese conditions, are modes of motion ; gravita- 

 tion and aggregation, heat, light; and associated with 

 these, actinism or chemical radiation ; electricity, under 

 all its conditions, whether static or dynamic; and 

 chemical affinity, regarded as the result of a separate 

 elementary principle. 



These forces must be considered as powers capable of 

 acting in perfect independence of each other. They are 

 possibly modifications of one principle ; but this view 

 being an hypothesis, which, as yet, is only supported by 

 loose analogies, cannot, without danger, be received in 

 any explanation which attempts to deal only with the 

 truths of science. 



We cannot examine the varied phenomena of nature, 

 without feeling that there must be other and most active 

 principles of a higher order than any detected by science, 



particles of matter, and the space between them (in water, or in 

 the vapour of water, for instance), as two different tilings the 

 space must be taken as the only continuous part, for the particles 

 are considered as separated by space from each other. Space will 

 permeate all masses of matter in every direction like a net, except 

 that in the place of meshes it will form cells, isolating each atom 

 from its neighbours, and itself only being continuous." 



Examining the question of the conducting power of different 

 bodies, and observing that as space is the only continuous part, 

 so space, according to the received view of matter, must be at one 

 time a conductor, at others a non-conductor, it is remarked : 



"It would seem, therefore, that, in accepting the ordinary 

 atomic theory, space may be proved to be a non-conductor in non- 

 conducting bodies, and a conductor in conducting bodies ; but 

 the reasoning ends in this a subversion of that theory altogether ; 

 for, if space be an insulator, it cannot exist in conducting bodies ; 

 and if it be a conductor, it cannot exist in insulating bodies." 

 A Speculation touching EUctric Conduction, and the Nature of 

 Matter : by Michael Faraday, D.C.L., F.K.S., Ac. : Philosophical 

 Magazine, vol. xxiv. Third Series. 



See also Wollaston, On the Finite Extent of the Atmosphere. 

 Phil. Trans. 1822. Young, On the Essential Properties of 

 Matter. Lectures on Natural Philosophy. Mossotti, On Molecular 

 Action. Scientific Memoirs, vol. i. p. 448. 



