AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 189 



particle becomes, in a measure, organic, or, as it is 

 usually expressed, " polarized." 



Thus electricity (and, therefore, magnetism) consists 

 of a special, local molecular strain, opposing the ordi- 

 nary cohesion of particles. It may, too, become suf- 

 ficiently intense to quite overcome the cohesion, and 

 thus to fuse, or even vaporize, a solid mass. It 

 thus performs the same office as heat is, indeed, in 

 such case, said to be transmuted into heat. And 

 not only so, but, just as heat is a mode of molec- 

 ular motion, transferable from one portion of matter 

 to another, so electricity is also only a varied mode 

 of molecular motion, capable of transmission. 



If, indeed, we take into account the relations involved 

 in its development, it becomes evident that, in reality, 

 electricity cannot but be in perpetual process of devel- 

 opment and transmission into other phases of force 

 wherever there is matter. True, it is not merely or 

 mainly a phase of molecular repulsion, like heat ; nor 

 of molecular attraction, like chemical affinity. On 

 the contrary it constantly exhibits both these phases 

 of energy in its activity, and is thus a specially com- 

 plex phase of molecular energy. 



Electricity is, indeed, described as of two kinds 

 " statical " and "dynamical." The former is said to 

 be developed by friction, the latter by chemical action. 

 But friction involves adhesion, which is an approach 

 to molecular attraction ; while chemical action is a 

 separation and recombining of "atoms," in which 

 there is necessarily involved molecular friction. Here, 

 again, then, we find ourselves face to face with the 

 identity in kind of molecular and mechanical energy, 



