388 THEORY OF GALVANIC, 



reciprocal attraction of imponderables," as main- 

 tained by Dr. Hare. It need scarcely be ob- 

 served, that there has never been the slightest 

 evidence adduced that such an attraction exists 

 between caloric and electricity, admitting them 

 to be distinct fluids ; while it is contrary to the 

 simplicity which characterizes all the operations 

 of nature to suppose the existence of two uni- 

 versal agents, endowed with the same funda- 

 mental properties. There cannot be two uni- 

 versal principles of action in nature; because 

 if they were different they would interfere with 

 each other, and produce discord and if they 

 were alike they would produce like results, which 

 amounts to the same thing as if they were radi- 

 cally identical.* If every apparent difference 

 between caloric and electricity be taken as an 

 argument against their identity, it would be easy 

 to prove that there are more than one hundred 

 electricities. There is a far greater difference 

 between the voltaic fluid disengaged by Chil- 

 dren's battery, and that from a common elec- 

 trical machine, than between the former and 

 the caloric evolved by ordinary combustion- 

 while the deflagration of steel wires in oxygen 



* Sir Isaac Newton thought it " inconceivable that two aethers 

 could be diffused through all nature, one of which acts upon the 

 other, and by consequence is reacted upon, without retarding, 

 shattering, dispersing, and confounding one another's motion/' 

 (Optics, p. 339.) 



