LAW; ITS DEFINITIONS. 



cisely the manner and degree which some definite 

 result requires. 



Nor is it less remarkable that the converse of 

 this is true : no Purpose is ever attained in Nature, 

 except by the enlistment of Laws as the means 

 and instruments of attainment. When an extra- 

 ordinary result is aimed at, it often happens that 

 some common law is yoked to extraordinary con- 

 ditions, and its action is intensified by some special 

 machinery. For example, the Forces of Electricity 

 are in action probably in all living Organisms, 

 but certainly in the muscular and nervous system 

 of the higher animals. In a very few (so far as 

 yet known, in only a very few animals among 

 the millions which exist, and these all belonging 

 to the Class of Fishes), the electrical action has 

 been so stored and concentrated as to render it 

 serviceable as a weapon of offence. Creatures 

 which grovel at the bottom of the sea or in the 

 slime of rivers, have been gifted with the aston- 

 ishing faculty of wielding at their will the most 

 subtle of all the powers of Nature. They have the 

 faculty of "shooting out lightning" against their 

 enemies or their prey. But this gift has not been 



