PRINCIPLES OF THINGS. 



37 



oi ascertaining whether they be matter at all, whether mere qualities of mat- 

 ter, or whether some other more subtle and spiritualized substances,* inter- 

 mixing themselves under different combinations with the material mass, and 

 giving birth to many of its most extraordinary properties and phenomena. 



The question is entered upon at some length by Professor Bezelius, in his 

 " Explanatory Statement," published in the Memoirs of the Academy of 

 Stockholm for 1812, in which he endeavours to support the probability that 

 the electric fluids and caloric are material as well as the fluid of light ; but, to 

 do this, he is compelled to alter the common definition of matter, and to con- 

 tend that matter does not necessarily possess gravitation or aggregation.! 



The materiality of light has been attempted to be proved by its effects on 

 solutions of muriate of ammonia and prussiate of potash, when placed in a 

 situation to be crystallized. The crystallization of these salts may be directed 

 at pleasure by the introduction of light at one or the other side of the ves- 

 sels containing such solutions. Camphor displays a like affinity for light. 

 All this, however, shows merely that light possesses an influence of some 

 kind ; but it by no means establishes that such influence is a material one. J 



Is it inquired to what important point these abstruse speculations lead ] I 

 may reply, among others, to the following : 



First, to a probability, if not to a proofj that matter, under peculiar modifi- 

 cations, is capable of making an approximation to something beyond itself, 

 as ordinarily displayed ; and hereby of becoming fitted, whenever necessary, 

 for an intercourse and union with an immaterial principle. 



And, secondly, to a clearer view of the coincidence of natural phenomena 

 with one of the most glorious discoveries of revelation. For notwithstand- 

 ing that matter, under every visible shape and texture, is at present, in a 

 greater or less degree, perpetually changing and decomposing, the moment 

 we perceive that this is not a necessary effect, dependent upon its intrinsic 

 nature, but a beneficial power superadded to it for the mere purpose of render- 

 ing it a more varied and more extensive medium of being, beauty, and happi- 

 ness — the moment we find ground for believing, that in its elementary prin- 

 ciples it is essentially solid and unchangeable ; and that even in many of its 

 compounds it is almost as much exempted from the law of change — we 

 are prepared to contemplate a period in some distant futurity, in which, the 

 great object for which it has been endowed with this superadded power being 

 accomplished, the exemption may extend equally to every part and to every 

 compound : a period in which there will be new heavens and a new earth, 

 and whatever is now corruptible will put on incorruption. 



But what, after all, is matter in its elementary principles, as far as we are 

 capable of following them up? Can it be divided and subdivided to infinity? 

 or is there a limit to such divisibility, beyond which the process cannot pos- 

 sibly proceed? and if so, are the ultimate bodies into which it is capable of 

 dissolving still susceptible of developement, or, from their attenuation, re- 

 moved beyond all power of detection ? 



These are questions which have agitated the world in almost all ages, and 

 have laid a foundation for a variety of theories, of too much consequence to 

 be passed over in a course of physical investigation. 



The tenet of an infinite divisibility of matter, whether in ancient or modern 

 times, appears to have been a mere invention for the purpose of avoiding one 

 or two self-contradictions supposed to be chargeable upon the- doctrine of its 

 ultimate and elementary solidity ; but which, I much fear, will be found to 

 have given birth to far more self-contrfidioiion than it has removed. The 

 mode of reasoning, however, by which this tenet was arrived at in ancient 

 Greece, was essentially different from that by which it has been arrived at io 

 our own day. 



It being, as we observed in our last lecture, an uncontroverted maxim 

 among all the Greek philosophers, of every sect and school whatever, that 

 nothing could proceed from nothing, matter was of course conceived to have 



• See Young's Lectures, vol. ii. p. 742, lec. Ix. f See Nicholson's Journal, vol. xxxiv. p. 164, 165. ) 

 t See Accum's Elements of Crystallography, and Tilloch'a Piiil. Mag. vol. xli. p. 367. 



