AND IMMATERIALISM. 



325 



an eye of devotional or even scientific feeling, we look abroad into the natu- 

 ral world under the present state of things ; and behold in what an infinite 

 multiplicity of shapes, and forms, and textures, and modifications, this same 

 degraded substrate of matter is rendered the basis of beauty and energy, and 

 vitality and enjoyment ; equally striking in the little and in the great ; in the 

 blade of grass we trample under foot, and in the glorious sun that rouses it 

 from its winter-sleep, and requickens it into verdure and fragrancy ; from the 

 peopled earth to the peopled heavens ; to the spheres on spheres, and systems 

 on systems, that above, below, and all around us fulfil their harmonious 

 courses, and from age to age 



In mystic dance, not without song, resound 

 His praise, wlio, out of darkness, called up light. 



Had the real order of nature been attended to, instead of the loose sug- 

 gestions of fancy, we should have heard but little of this controversy ; for it 

 would have made us too modest to engage in it : it would have shown us com- 

 pletely our own ignorance, and the folly of persevering in so fruitless a chase. 

 Let us then, in as few words as possible, and in order to excite this modesty, 

 attempt that which has been too seldom attempted heretofore, and see how 

 far the subject is unfolded to us in the book of the visible creation. 



It has already appeared to us that matter in its simplest and rudest state is 

 universally possessed of certain active properties, as those of gravitation 

 and repulsion, which, in consequence of their universality, have been deno- 

 minated essential :* but it has also appeared to us that there is an insuperable 

 difficulty in determining whether these properties belong to common matter 

 intrinsically, or are endowments resulting from the presence and operation 

 of some foreign body, the ethereal medium of Sir Isaac Newton, and which, 

 if it exist at all, is probably a something different from matter, or, if material, 

 different from common, visible, and tangible matter. 



It has appeared to us next, that common matter, in peculiar states of modi- 

 fication, is also possessed of peculiar properties, independently of the general 

 or essential properties which belong to the entire mass.f Thus iron and iron 

 ore give proofs of the possession of that substance or qiiality which we call 

 magnetic ; glass, amber, and the muscular fibres of animals give equal proofs 

 of that substance or quality which we denominate electric or Voltaic ; and all 

 bodies in a state of activity, of that substance or quality which is intended 

 by the term caloric. But what is magnetism 1 What is Voltaism? What is 

 caloric ] There is not a philosopher in the world who can answer these 

 questions : we know almost as little of them as of gravitation, and can only 

 trace them by their results. W^e can, indeed, collect and concentrate them, 

 invisible and intangible as they are to our senses ; and we have hence some 

 reason for believing them to be distinct substances rather than mere qualities ; 

 and, consequently, denominate them auras. But are these auras material or 

 immaterial 1 Examined by the common properties of matter, as weight, soli- 

 dity, impenetrability, they appear to be the latter; for they are all equally 

 destitute of these properties, so far as our experiments have extended ; and 

 hence they are either immaterial substances, or material substances void of 

 the general qualities that oelong to matter in its grosser forms. 



Let us ascer.d to the next step in this wonderful and mysterious scale. 

 It appeared from the remarks offered in a former lecture,| that, independently 

 of that general influence and power of attraction which every particle of mat- 

 ter exerts over every other particle, there are some bodies which exert a 

 peculiar power over other bodies, which separate them from their strongest 

 and most stubborn connexions, and as completely run away with them as the 

 fox runs away with the young chicken. And we here behold another power 

 introduced, and of a still higher order; a power, too, of the most complex 

 variety, and which in different substances exhibits every possible diversity 

 of strength. 



• Ser. I. Lect. iv. p. 53. 55. f Ser. i. Lect. v. p. 57. t Ser. i. Lect. v. p. 6a 



