LAUGEI/S PROBLEMS OF NATURE AND LIFE. 343 



changes in the atoms of matter as constituting elec- 

 tricity, is but to hide the real difficulty. In electrical 

 actions there is something evolved a power capable of 

 conduction to unlimited distances with equal velocity 

 to that of light. This conduction, as it occurs through 

 wires, bears cogently on the question. The differences 

 of effect produced by the varying material, thickness 

 and length of these conductors, can hardly be recon- 

 ciled with other views than that of a specific agent, 

 acting in a certain ratio to its quantity and intensity, 

 and capable of being estimated under these relations. 

 The properties of quantity and intensity, and still more 

 the faculty of being concentrated and accumulated 

 within determinate spaces, especially characterise elec- 

 tricity, and associate it closely with those conditions 

 which designate matter to our knowledge. 



If we admit this, another question at once arises, 

 Can we identify this electric element with any other 

 known agent in the natural world ? What we need- 

 fully require is some agent cosmical in the largest sense 

 of the word, since the electric influence is present, not 

 solely in the atomic and molecular changes of matter, 

 but in regions of space far beyond our sphere. This 

 universality led Faraday to conjecture some direct con- 

 nexion between the force of gravitation and the electric 

 power ; but he failed in finding any experimental proof 

 of this hypothesis, and avowed the failure. 



But before hurrying to the theory of a new and 

 special power (a bare assumption, complicating yet 

 more the knotty problem of the elementary forces), 

 we are bound to see whether any natural element, 



