86 THE ELECTRIC ELEMENT. 



and occupy the various forms of sensible matter without 

 involving relations and actions, equally subtle, between 

 this element and the atoms or molecules of which 

 matter is composed. We cannot conceive changes of 

 any kind in the latter without some equivalent change 

 or manifestation in the former. Without assuming to 

 indicate what may be cause and what effect, in these 

 infinitesimal actions, we may at least deem it next to 

 certain that the agency of ether cannot be limited to 

 the phenomena expressed by light and heat only ; or 

 that its elasticity, velocity of wave-motion, and other 

 properties remain unaltered when coming into that 

 close atomic coalescence which all analogy tells us to 

 be the condition of most energetic physical action. 



If, failing to bring direct proof of the presence and 

 action of ether in these subtle phenomena, the question 

 suggests itself, have we not its substitute and repre- 

 sentative in electricity in those wonderful phenomena, 

 evolved and apparent to our tests, even in the most 

 minute atomic changes, and capable both by natural 

 and artificial means (but always in connexion with 

 atomic disturbance) of being raised to a high degree of 

 intensity and quantitative power? What is there, in 

 short, to forbid the conception that electricity is the 

 ether itself? not existing as in its more equable 

 diffusion through interplanetary and stellar space, but 

 from its embodiment in terrestrial matter, solid, fluid, 

 and gaseous, quickened into new conditions, acting or 

 acted upon in all atomic changes, and in certain of 

 these extricated in such quantity and manner as to 

 become a powerful and prolific agent in the hands of 



