1884. J On Electricity and its Present Applications. 459 
affording a glimpse of the stupendous scale on which the 
theory of development or evolution in this department may 
be applied. And, as it is believed by astronomers that the 
stellar system to which we belong is — independently of its 
other motions— -drifting in some to us unknown direction 
through space, it follows that new and unexhausted fields of 
either “ untrodden fields and pastures ever new ” — are be- 
coming continually accessible, as the pabulum from which 
God s universe, or family of worlds, receive their nourish- 
ment and growth. 
The creation of worlds may thus be understood to be a 
gradual, continuous, and never-ceasing process; and we can 
easily believe that among the streams of cosmic dust or 
stones drifting through space, which must have become 
concreted or gravitated together from the material atoms of 
ether, gravitation will still further unite them into larger 
and larger masses, as, in their motion through space, they 
come within reach of each other’s attraction ; and thus it 
will happen that some large and always enlarging ones will 
come to assume the rank of planets or planetoids, as we 
actually find that they are now doing in our own solar 
system. This mode of genesis, too, combined with their 
rotary motion, will sufficiently account for the almost perfect 
sphericity of the heavenly bodies. 
I his long digression — if we can call it a digression — on 
the subject of cosmogony has mainly arisen, as you may 
recollect, from the sight of Mr. Crookes’s radiometer, and 
the speculation that so suggestive an instrument is calcu- 
lated to give rise to. 
Having made acquaintance with Electron in two of the 
forms which he exhibits himself, we may now view him in 
another and almost as important an aspect, that of heat. 
Nearly all his operations on matter are attended by a motion 
or vibration of its atoms resulting in, and in faCt consti- 
tuting, what we call heat. The great Genie himself seems 
gradually to disappear after putting his subject materials 
into a state of tremulous motion, which gradually subsides, 
with results more or less observable. He himself may either 
go into some new arrangement of the materials, or else 
vanish into surrounding space, though of course he can 
never be lost or annihilated. 
Heat is undoubtedly the most familiar attitude, and the 
most useful and indispensable form, in which Electron can 
be viewed ; but the purposes he serves, and the benefits he 
confers on the world, in this character, are so well known 
and appreciated that it is unnecessary even to enumerate, 
■ 2 , H 2 
