1884.] On Electricity and its Present Applications. 461 
on the operations of the world. Leaving the religious and 
higher aspedt of the subjedt, bearing on the soul, untouched 
and unaffedted, it may be argued on this point that the pro- 
perty of the living body implied by the terms irritability 
and contradtility may be said to lie at the root, and to be in 
truth the main test and indication, of life. It is the first 
and the last of the vital adtions of the living organism, 
manifested in the embryo long before consciousness begins, 
and remaining for some time after death in the heart and 
other parts, even when separated from the body. This 
property is undeniably due to the presence of the neura, or 
nervous power, which is developed and transmitted by the 
combined adtion of the organic mechanism, and it is through 
the medium of Eledtron in this form that the brain-power, 
the feelings, the senses, and in fadt whatever may be said to 
constitute the life of the animal, are maintained. It in 
truth may claim to be the ipse ego of the individual, rather 
than the bodily receptacle which is inhabited by it. It is 
true that the two are inseparable and indispensable to each 
other, and that they adt and readt on each other in many 
ways that are to us inscrutable ; but the moment the body 
loses the power of maintaining and transmitting the neces- 
sary supply of its animating spirit their complete separation 
ensues, and the result is death, dissolution, decomposition, 
and dispersion of its materials. Was it not an unfortunate 
boast that Dr. Tyndall made when he said that “ we can 
discern in matter the promise and the potency of all terres- 
trial life ” ? — meaning to imply that it is independent of any 
higher agency than what is inherent in itself. It seems to 
me, on the contrary, that matter is like clay in the hands of 
the potter, and that God makes use of some intermediate 
agent or agents, eledtricity especially, or by whatever other 
name it may be called, which is not necessarily nor perhaps 
universally inherent in matter, to carry on His operations 
in the world ; and it is by this power, in fadt, that all things 
are kept together in their present position and arrangement. 
Were it withdrawn, by the Almighty Creator, the property 
of cohesion would cease ; all things would fall asunder into 
dust, and would probably be scattered into space like the 
sand or dust in the Desert. 
Yes ! the supremacy belongs to spirit, and not to matter. 
All the admirable and elevating works of art, of poetry, 
literature, and science ; all the inventions and discoveries 
of man, his heroic achievements, his virtues, his religious 
and philanthropic enthusiasms ; these, and it must be added 
also all their opposites of a malign description, are the 
