ON SYMPATHY AND FASCINATION. 231 



Of its mode of existence we know nothing: but as little do we know of 

 the principle of gravitation or of mind. We can only assure ourselves that 

 they are distinct powers, perhaps distinct essences ; and we see them acting-, 

 as well separately as conjointly, for the general good. Under their accordant 

 influence we behold the plastic and mysterious substance of matter, which 

 \ve must be especially careful not to confound with themselves, rising from 

 "airy nothing" into entity; ascending from invisible elements into worlds 

 and systems of worlds ; from shapeless chaos and confusion, into form, and 

 order, and harmony ; from brute and lifeless immobility, into energy and 

 activity ; into a display of instinct, feeling, perception ; of being, and beauty, 

 and happiness. One common design, one uniform code of laws, equally 

 simple and majestic, equally local and comprehensive, pervades, informs, 

 unites, and consummates the whole. The effect, then, being one, the mighty 

 cause that produced it must be one also ; an eternal and infinite unity the 

 radiating fountain of all possible perfections ever active, but ever at rest 

 ever present, though never seen immaterial, incorporeal, ineffable: but the 

 source of all matter, of all mind, of all existences, and all modes of exist- 

 ence. Whatever we behold is God all nature is his awful temple all 

 sciences the porticoes that open to it: and the chief duty of philosophy is to 

 conduct us to his altar; to render all our attainments, which are the boun- 

 teous afflations of his spirit, subservient to his glory ; and to engrave on the 

 tablet of our hearts this great accordant motto of all natural and all revealed 

 religion, of Athens and of Antioch, of Aratus and of St. Paul, " in him we 

 live, and move, and have our being." 



f Atoj 

 Tov yap KM yivos (a 



LECTURE VI. 



ON SYMPATHY AND FASCINATION. 



WE have now summarily contemplated several of the most important 

 phenomena both of organic and inorganic nature ; and have traced out some 

 thing of the laws by which these phenomena are produced and regulated. 

 Among the most extraordinary facts that have occurred to us may, perhaps, 

 be enumerated the occasional production of effects by causes which do not 

 appear to be immediately connected with them; the operation of one body 

 upon another remotely situated, and which, so far as we are able to trace 

 them, have no medium of communication. The sun is perpetually acting 

 upon and influencing the earth, the earth the moon, the moon the ocean : the 

 magnet operates upon iron, whatever be the sheet of substance interposed ; 

 and if the iron be divided into small filings, so that the different particles may 

 move with facility, communicates to each an obvious polarity, and gives to 

 the whole a peculiar and beautiful arrangement. And the repulsive and 

 attractive powers of the electric fluid are supposed to act upon each other, not 

 only where two or more particles of this fluid are perfectly or very nearly in 

 contact, but between all particles of it, at all distances, whatever obstacles 

 may lie between them.f 



Chemical science lays open to us a wonderful field of similar affections 

 and affinities. Within the range of its peculiar regions, we behold almost 

 every substance evincing a determinate series both of inclinations and of 

 antipathies, strongly attracted by one kind of material, indifferent towards a 

 second, and powerfully avoiding a third. From these extraordinary endow- 

 ments proceeds unquestionably the union or separation of different oodies, 



* Aral. Phsenom. 1. 4, 5 I Young's Lectur-s, vol. i. p 659 



