RELATIONS OF ETHER TO MOLECULES 57 



energy, but also a sufficient number unconsumed. There 

 must be carbon entering into combination and raising a 

 high temperature, and there must be carbon not entering 

 into combination, and the action of both produces light 

 of proper intensity. Magnesia or lime, being infusible 

 and incombustible, placed in a flame of intense heat, 

 gives forth a brilliant light. The most dazzling illu- 

 minant that can be produced is that of electricity passing 

 between carbon points. 



A lamp, we say, or sun, is an instrument of two divi- 

 sions and two modes of action. In the one, chemical 

 action creates heat motions in the ether. Against the 

 other, which to it is as a stone wall, these heat motions 

 dash, and spring back not broken and destroyed, but 

 glorified and glowing with illuminating power. But for 

 the existence of matter capable of chemical action, but 

 for its adjustment to the ether in two different ways, it 

 would, in the vastness of its extent, in the beauty and 

 perfection of its order, and in its adaptation for work of 

 extraordinary usefulness and fineness, have existed in 

 vain. That it has being, and that atoms also exist, of 

 such a nature, and so adjusted to it, and in such multi- 

 tudes as to bring it into glorious play throughout the 

 most extended regions, cannot be by chance, but must be 

 due to mind. 



If we venture to look toward the sun, or fix our eyes 

 on a lamp, rays of light come to us in a direct line. We 

 see them beaming; they dazzle us by their brightness. 

 Other beams reveal themselves only when they strike 

 solid objects. Kays passing into a room show their 

 splendour on floor or wall, and also mark their course by 

 lighting up the dust they encounter. Were they to show 

 their lustre in passing through the air ; were their rela- 

 tions to the oxygen and nitrogen of the atmosphere such 



