346 LAUGEL'S PROBLEMS OF NATURE AND LIFE. 



such facts give proof of the astonishing subtlety and 

 mobility of the element concerned, and of its capacity 

 to assume altered physical aspects when brought into 

 contact with the ponderable forms of matter. 



It is not requisite to vindicate this hypothesis in its 

 application to all the phenomena of electricity, when 

 every other theory has failed to interpret them. The 

 problem of the two electricities embraces the most 

 arduous of these questions departing from all recog- 

 nised properties of other powers, and still a barrier 

 to the boldest conjecture. But there is nothing here 

 to contradict the view of ether as the agent concerned 

 nothing certainly to establish the claim of any other 

 element. The difficulty, being equal and alike under 

 any hypothesis, may fairly be eliminated from the argu- 

 ment. And the same may be said of those magnetic 

 relations of electricity, which in the phenomena of dia- 

 magnetism and magnetic lines of force, of magneto- 

 cry stallic action, and of the direct action of the magnet 

 on electric currents, offer many questions of supreme 

 difficulty, but not more insuperable on the view which 

 identifies the electric element with ether than on any 

 other. 



Several other points might be urged on behalf of 

 the hypothesis, had we space for them such as the 

 meteorological relations of electricity, and the wonder 1 

 ful phenomena exhibited by the crystalline texture in 

 connexion with light and electricity. Still, however, 

 it is obvious that the argument is one of presumption 

 only, and from the very nature of its conditions will 

 never probably get beyond this. But we think that it 



