282 ELECTRICITY. 



all motion and power throughout the earth, it 

 must also be the cause of the annual and diurnal 

 motions of planets. 



If, then, caloric be a universal principle of 

 action in nature, and immediately connected 

 with all the phenomena of motion, what is elec- 

 tricity ? Is it a distinct fluid, sui generis ? or is 

 it a modification of the igneous principle ? These 

 questions, so intimately connected with the whole 

 theory of Physics, have never yet been satis- 

 factorily answered. If. electricity were the ge- 

 neric moving power of nature, it ought to be 

 every where present. But so far is this from 

 being the fact, that it is only under peculiar 

 circumstances that it is developed so as to be 

 appreciable by the senses ; whereas, it is impos- 

 sible to realize the absence of heat, which is 

 indispensable to all the phenomena of climate, 

 season, the growth of vegetation, and the life of 

 nature. (See page 208.) 



As the subject is acknowledged by all philo- 

 sophers of the present day to be involved in the 

 utmost obscurity, I shall offer no apology for 

 endeavouring to place it in a new light. While 

 many regard electricity as the cause of all mo- 

 lecular attractions, aftd others as the vital prin- 

 ciple, almost everything connected with its origin 

 and laws, is either debatable or unintelligible ; 

 some maintaining with Franklin, that it is a 

 subtile and inconceivably refined species of mat- 



