THE ELECTRIC ELEMENT. 89 



alike under any hypothesis, may fairly be eliminated 

 from the argument. And the same may be said 

 generally of all the problems which electricity puts 

 before us. 



I have only cursorily alluded to those wonderful 

 magnetic relations of electricity which almost embody 

 a science in themselves. But they present no fresh 

 difficulties to our hypothesis. On the contrary, all the 

 phenomena of magnetism and diamagnetism, of magno- 

 crystallic action, of magnetic lines of force, and of the 

 direct action of the magnet on electric currents, testify 

 their dependence on an agent pervading matter 

 throughout its ultimate atoms, giving polarity to 

 masses by polarising particles, and variously modi- 

 fied in its action and mode of evolution by the kind 

 of matter it permeates. This is a point to which 

 our regards may more especially be directed, since all 

 recent enquiry tends to prove that the motions and 

 relations of the ultimate atoms of matter depend upon, 

 and are governed by, the polarities of these atoms. 

 The phenomena of crystallisation, and even those of 

 the lightest gases, hardly admit of other interpretation. 

 Electricity, so strikingly manifested in its polar con- 

 ditions, however evolved or applied, comes into instant 

 and almost certain relation with these infinitesimal 

 atomic actions. And this forces us again upon the 

 question, Can we suppose these wonderful actions ever 

 going on in the intimate recesses, and among the 

 Siaiptra crw^ara of matter, independently of another 

 agent (itself material, from the very definition of its 

 functions), pervading and acting in this very domain ? 



