LAWj — ITS DEFINITIONS. 105 



knowledge of all the mysteries which have been 

 gradually unfolded from the days of Galvini to 

 those of Faraday, and of many others which are 

 still inscrutable to us, is exhibited in this struc- 

 ture. The laws which are appealed to in the 

 accomplishment of this purpose are many and 

 very complicated ; because the conditions to be 

 satisfied refer not merely to the generation of 

 Electric force in the animal to which it is given, 

 but to its effect on the nervous system of the 

 animals against which it is to be employed, and 

 to the conducting medium in which both are 

 moving. 



When we contemplate such a structure as this, 

 the idea is borne in with force upon the mind, that 

 the need of conforming to definite conditions seems 

 as absolute a necessity in making an Electric Fish 

 as in making an Electric Telegraph. But the fact 

 of these conditions existing and requiring to be 

 satisfied, — or, in other words, the fact of so many 

 natural laws demanding a first obedience, — is not 

 the ultimate fact, it is not even the main fact, 

 which Science apprehends in such phenomena as 

 these. On the contrary, that which is most 



