PRINCIPLES OF THINGS. 



of which seems in truth to be only a peculiar modification of the second, 

 together with other substances or qualities which in subtilty and activity 

 have a considerable resemblance to them, as light and the magnetic aura,, 

 we are not only wholly incapable of decomposing them by any process 

 whatever, but even of determining them to be ponderable, or to possess 

 any of the other common properties of matter, as extent and solidity* 

 Whence we are, in fact, incapable of ascertaining whether they be matter 

 at all, whether mere qualities of matter^ or whether some other more 

 subtle and spiritualized substances,* intermixing themselves under differ- 

 ent combinations with the material mass, and giving birth to many of its> 

 most extraordinary properties and phaenomena. 



The question is entered upon at some length by Professor Berzelius, 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 hght ; 

 but, to do this, he is compelled to alter the common definition of matter, 

 and to contend that matter does not necessarily possess gravitation or 

 aggregation,! 



The materiality of light has been attempted to be proved by its effect* 

 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 vessels 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 n» means establishes that such influence 

 is a material one.| 



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 proof, that matter, under peculiar modi- 

 fications, 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 phae- 

 nomena with one of the most glorious discoveries of revelation. For 

 notwithstanding 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 eflfect, dependent 

 upon its intrinsic nature, but a beneficial power superadded to it for the 

 mere purpose of rendering it a more varied and more extensive medium 

 of being, beauty, and happiness — the moment we find ground for believing, 

 that in its elementary principles 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 t© 



* See Young's Lectures, vol. ii. p. 742. lect. Ix. 

 t See Nicholson's Journal, vol. xxxiv. p. 164, 165. 



I See Accum's Elemeats of Crystallography, and Tilloch's Phik Mag. vol. xli. p. 



