56 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



boundaries of his five senses ; that the things which are 

 seen in the material world depend for their action upon 

 things unseen ; in short, that besides the phenomena 

 which address the senses, there are laws and principles 

 and processes which do not address the senses at all, 

 but which must be, and can be, spiritually discerned. 



To the subjects which require this discernment be- 

 long the phenomena of molecular force. But to trace 

 the genesis of the notions now entertained upon this 

 subject, we have to go a long way back. In the draw- 

 ing of a bow, the darting of a javelin, the throwing of a 

 stone in the lifting of burdens, and in personal com- 

 bats, even savage man became acquainted with the 

 operation of force. Ages of discipline, moreover, taught 

 him foresight. He laid by at the proper season stores 

 of food, thus obtaining time to look about him, and to 

 become an observer and enquirer. Two things which 

 he noticed must have profoundly stirred his curiosity. 

 He found that a kind of resin dropped from a certain 

 tree possessed, when rubbed, the power of drawing 

 light bodies to itself, and of causing them to cling to 

 it ; and he also found that a particular stone exerted 

 a similar power over a particular kind of metal. I 

 allude, of course, to electrified amber, and to the load- 

 stone, or natural magnet, and its power to attract 

 particles of iron. Previous experience of his own 

 muscles had enabled our early enquirer to distinguish 

 between a push and a pull. Augmented experience 

 showed him that in the case of the magnet arid the 

 amber, pulls and pushes attractions and repulsions 

 were also exerted ; and, by a kind of poetic transfer, 

 he applied to things external to himself, conceptions 

 derived from himself. The magnet and the rubbed, 

 amber were credited with pushing and pulling, or, in 

 other words, with exerting force. 



