CHAP. 7. OF ELECTRICITY. 207 



most credit. While Electricians were thus 

 contending, the ingenious I. A. De Luc pro- 

 posed a system somewhat different from either 

 of the former, an account of which may be 

 found in his works, to which I refer the 

 reader, and leave him to judge of the validity 

 of it by the evidence there adduced. While 

 some philosophers have contended for one 

 fluid, and some for two, others have recently 

 contended for no fluid at all, and have spoken 

 of electrical effects as depending on the agencies 

 of matter. Without dwelling on these adverse 

 systems, which appear, in a great measure, 

 verbal differences, I shall merely observe, tha f 

 there are certain modes of action of bodies on 

 each other, such as all the phaenomena of arti- 

 ficial Electricity, &c. which custom has ascribed 

 to the agency of a specific fluid. Whatever 

 may be the principle of their action, the daily 

 experience of philosophers shows the extent of 

 this principle. Indeed, recent discoveries and 

 experiments incline one to regard it as the 

 universal agent in all the changes of form 

 which matter undergoes.* A notion of the 



* The discoveries made by Sir H. Davy seem calculated 

 to throw light on this interesting subject. 



