224 
OF GARDENING AS A SCIENCE. 
their correctness there could be no doubt ; several plants did not bloom, others 
produced but one or two flowers, and all would have failed had we not thrown the 
pit open to light and air. Whether the blue tint produced any specific effect 
remains in doubt ; but such were the consequences of the experiment. 
Some years since, we offered a few opinions upon the nature and offices of light, 
which, in the main, we see no sufficient reason to retract, more especially since we 
have perused the series of articles upon electricity, which are now publishing in 
that useful periodical, The Magazine of Domestic Economy ; and we earnestly 
solicit the reader to peruse these articles, as we believe them to comprise the most 
lucid view of electrical science which is to be found in print. 
The unity of creation, the universality of light, seem to require, and, indeed, 
prove, that one simple, vivifying principle is, and has been, in active operation from 
the commencement of time. Professor Playfair once observed, 44 If we consider how 
many different laws seem to regulate the action of impulse, cohesion, elasticity, 
chemical affinity, crystallisation, heat, light, magnetism, electricity, galvanism ; 
the existence of a principle more general than these , and connecting all of them with 
that of gravitation, appears highly probable!' 
Such was the almost prophetic suggestion of our late philosopher. Professor 
Leslie presumed that the globe was 44 cavernous , replete with light , shining with intense 
splendour But if, as we believe to be the fact, solar light is the only ethereal 
essence or matter which pervades all nature, we require no such cavernous, central 
magazine of it ; neither need we perplex our minds concerning the source of 
effulgence, for the sun stands revealed to all, and the life and activity of all creation 
depend upon his beams. 44 Let there be light f was a word of power, view it in 
what way we please, for the life of all created things was included in its fiat ; and 
there is not one act of progress or increase, of respiration, decomposition, motion, 
electrical or chemical action, that is not, and ever has been, dependent on it for its 
commencement, continuation, and completion. Let those who doubt consider the 
glorious orb, whose beams have been poured upon the planetary system throughout 
time ; let them, with the eyes of a philosopher, view the mighty phenomena of 
development and increase that are manifestly the result of his power, and they 
will find themselves constrained either to admit that light is absorbed by the bodies 
upon which it strikes, or that it becomes extinguished and lost ; the latter conclusion 
would be subversive of the analogy of all nature. 
But if the beams of light be absorbed, they must of necessity lie masked or con- 
cealed till excited by some powerful agent which disturbs the natural equilibrium ; 
and such disturbance is of every-day occurence in every act of percussion, abrasion, 
motion, chemical action, and so forth. 
The theory of light , therefore, involves the following positions : — Its source is 
the sun , whence its diffusion is universal. The primary effects of light are the dis- 
tribution and modification of electrical, magnetic, and chemical attraction and 
repulsion ; and the secondary are the phenomena of gravitation acting by the laws 
