46 PROBABLE ACTION OF THE 



guided the labours of an Infinite Mind, than that which 

 supposes a vast number of individual creations. It will 

 be seen in the sequel that light, heat, electricity, and 

 chemical action, have the power of producing yet more 

 striking changes in the forms of bodies. Is it not 

 probable that, according to .the operations of these 

 agents, either combined or separate, acting over different 

 spaces of time, and under varying circumstances, in 

 relation to the molecular forces, all those allotropic 

 states may be produced ? Hence bodies may be dis- 

 covered, which, from the imperfectious of science, 

 resisting our means of analysis, must, for a time, be 

 regarded as new elements, whereas they are possibly 

 only altered states of the same substance. 



The experiments of Faraday and of Plucker prove 

 that all matter exists in certain polar conditions, having 

 powers of mutual attraction and repulsion.* Are the 

 molecular forces, so called, to be referred to any of those 

 powers which are involved in the general term magnetic- 

 polarity ? Are they not probably the result of some 

 ultimate principle of which these properties are but 

 the modified manifestations? These questions will 

 now be generally answered in favour of magnetism ; 

 but in bur ignorance we should pause ; the next genera- 



* Faraday, in his memoir On new Magnetic Actions, and on the 

 Magnetic Conditions of all Matter, says : " By the exertion of 

 this new condition of force, the body moved may pass either along 

 the magnetic lines or across them, and it may move along or across 

 theip in either or any direction, so that two portions of matter., 

 simultaneously subject to this power, may be made to approach 

 each other as if they were mutually attracted, or recede as if 

 mutually repelled. All the phenomena resolve themselves into 

 this, that a portion of such matter, when under magnetic action, 

 tends to move from stronger to weaker places or points of force. 

 When the substance is surrounded by lines of magnetic force of 

 equal power on all sides, it does not tend to move, and is then in 

 marked contradistinction with a linear current of electricity under 

 the same circumstances." Phil. Trans, for 1846, vol. cxxxviL 



