284 ELECTRICITY. 



learn the relations of caloric and electricity. If 

 it can be shewn, that under all circumstances 

 they are modified effects of one and the same 

 agent, the science of nature will be at once di- 

 vested of that complexity which has hitherto 

 baffled every attempt to reduce the phenomena 

 of nature to fixed principles. 



It is not my object to enter into a detailed 

 examination of the various conflicting hypotheses 

 which have been invented to explain the pheno- 

 mena of electricity ; and which, for the most 

 part, have been founded on the partial, and often 

 ill conceived experiments of a little laboratory. 

 The truth is, that all our experiments are but 

 feeble and imperfect imitations of what is per- 

 petually going on in the laboratory of nature. 

 But who has ever studied the natural history of 

 lightning, by tracing its genealogy or nascent 

 production, as connected with evaporation, and 

 all the phenomena of precipitation ? Who has 

 carefully observed the connexion between flashes 

 of lightning, and torrents of rain, hail, tornados, 

 hurricanes, &c. ? The fundamental laws of elec- 

 tricity which connect it with caloric, light, mag- 

 netism, or the sublime movements of geology 

 and meteorology, will never be deduced with 

 unerring fidelity from mere artificial experi- 

 ments. The greater part of those on electricity, 

 are calculated rather to amuse and astonish 

 children, than to edify those who are in quest of 

 useful knowledge. 



