1883.} Recent Progress of Electricity 461 
this way he can, under proper superintendence, be made to 
perform the work of a domestic slave or servant, in sewing, 
washing, &c., and even in lying on the watch and sounding 
an alarm in the event of robbery or fire. He can also be 
made use of as the motive power of vehicles and machinery of 
all kinds. In short he can be made to perform any kind of 
mechanical labour which does not require the diredl exertion 
of mind and intelligence — gifts which God has bestowed on 
man alone. 
The motions which God has given to the great oblate 
globe of the earth must, we should expedl, cause relative 
motions on the part of such a mobile and ethereal substance 
(if substance it can be called) as that of this great Geni. 
We do not know the natural laws by which spirits are 
governed, but, speculating on their analogy to those which 
apply to the rarest of fluids and gases that we are acquainted 
with, we may to some extent be assisted to understand how 
much a spirit would comport itself in the world, though even 
the laws of acoustics or of hydrodynamics cannot properly 
be considered as applicable to so immaterial and imponder- 
able a spirit as Eledlron. The natural effect produced on 
these fluids by the rotation of the earth would be centrifugal 
at the meridional circumference, and centripetal at the poles. 
In the case of the eledtric spirit (supposing, as some think, 
that it has the slightest amount of gravity), the rotary motion 
of the earth would, at both ends of its axis, tend to draw it 
into the interior, which it would penetrate and traverse as 
easily as if it were a hollow sphere ; and, the motion of the 
globe being greatest at its equatorial circumference, the 
spirit would find his way there, and would (thence) issue 
forth refreshed and invigorated by his passage through the 
central fire of the earth, imparting warmth and fertility to 
the tropical regions, though often giving indications of his 
superabundant presence by frolicsome outbursts, which are 
sometimes attended with disastrous consequences. And 
thence he would become diffused through and over the 
atmosphere, and so would find his way back to the Poles, 
there to be again absorbed, and to enter again on what may 
be called his normal circuit of the earth. Thus the earth 
sustains the part of a vast storehouse, continually receiving 
detachments from this spirit of the universe by its great 
polar and other entrances, and continually giving forth 
supplies by even more numberless exits. 
Though one of the principal agents in carrying out the 
laws by which God governs the world, Ele(5tron is himself 
subject only to such laws as are adapted for his constitution 
