CHEMICAL ATTRACTION. 207 



governed by the same fundamental law ; that 

 all the most powerful displays of electric action 

 are only modified effects of that all -pervading 

 spirit of matter which warms in the life-giving- 

 solar beams, and preserves the universe in a 

 state of unceasing motion. 



It is because philosophers have not suffi- 

 ciently examined the relations of heat and elec- 

 tricity, and the law by which they are con- 

 nected with ponderable matter, that almost every 

 department of Physics has become involved in 

 profound obscurity. It is self-evident, that if 

 electricity be a bond of union between the par- 

 ticles of bodies, it must have an attraction for 

 them a circumstance which has been over- 

 looked by Davy, Berzelius, Ampere, and their 

 followers. Dr. Thomson observes, that " with 

 respect to the unknown link which unites elec- 

 tricity to atoms, and keeps it united with them, 

 we are quite in the dark." (Inorganic Che- 

 mistry, vol. i. p. 40.) 



Never can the science of chemistry be re- 

 duced to the simplicity of established principles, 

 until men shall recognize the relations of caloric 

 and electricity, and the universal law by which 

 they are connected with ponderable matter. 



When a bar of iron is charged with the elec- 

 tric aether, it attracts iron filings, which collect 

 around it in large bunches, each particle cling- 

 ing to the others, like bees suspended from the 



