l8o ON THE PHILOSOPHY 



bodies, and, lying concealed in them, to cause at- 

 traction and repulsion ; the emission, reflection, and 

 refraction of light; electricity, calefaction, sensation, 

 and muscular motion, is described by the Hindus as a 

 fifth element, endued with those very powers ; and 

 the Vedas abound with allusions to a force univer- 

 sally attractive, which they chiefly ascribe to the 

 Sun, thence called Aditya, or the Attractor : a name 

 designed by the mycologists to mean the Child of 

 the Goddess Aditi ; but the most wonderful passage 

 on the flieory of attraction, occurs in the charming 

 allegorical poem of Shi'ri'n and FeRha'b, or the 

 Divine Spirit and a human soul disinterestedly pious : 

 a work which, from the first verse to the last, is a 

 blaze of religious and poetical fire. The whole 

 passage appears to me so curious, that I make no 

 apology for giving you a faithful translation of it : 

 " There is a strong propensity which dances through 

 " every atom, and attracts the minutest particle to 

 " some peculiar object. Search this universe from 

 " its base to its summit, from fire to air, from water 

 44 to earth, from all below the Moon to all above 

 il the celestial spheres, and thou wilt not find a cor- 

 cc puscle destitute of that natural attractability ; the 

 €e very point of the first thread, in this apparently 

 " tangled skein, is no other than such a principle of 

 <c attraction ; and all principles beside are void of 

 u a real basis : from such h propensity arises every 

 cc motion perceived in heavenly, or in terrestrial 

 <c bodies : it is a disposition to be attracted, which 

 ** taught hard steel to rush from its place and rivet 



" itself 



