466 On Electricity and its Present Applications. [August, 
Samson, when forced to grind and make sport for the 
Philistines, bring down their financial structures in ruin on 
the heads of many of them, — a disaster which indeed has 
already occurred in several instances. 
The form of allegory, or slightly interrupted allegory, in 
which this paper has been cast is of course not like a 
scientific, or logical, or deduCtive treatise. It is, and pro- 
fesses to be, nothing more than a semi-fabulous and 
romantic account of the matter on which it treats. By a 
wave of its magic wand it sweeps away doubts and diffi- 
culties, and fills up gaps or dangerous and defective places 
which stand in its way. As Browning says — 
“ It brings the invisible into play, 
By letting the visible go to the dogs.” 
By an instinctive stroke of the imagination it fills in what- 
ever is wanting to render its narrative as life-like, truth-like, 
and acceptable as possible ; and yet it is quite possible that 
it may convey the elements of truth as really as many a dry 
and laborious philosophical dissertation. By the quaint and 
grotesque points of view in which it presents the subjeCt, it 
tends to bring out new features and aspeCts of it, which 
might be overlooked in the ordinary light of scientific 
treatment. 
And there is another point of view in which some might 
be disposed to regard it favourably. If not in accordance 
with the most recent views in Theology, it is at least in 
harmony with the older and orthodox idea of the personality 
of God. It strikes the same key-note of impersonation, and 
is in accordance with the style of language employed in the 
Bible, and with the way in which an old Hebrew prophet 
might have declaimed “ Sed eheu quam magno intervallo ” 
on such a subjeCt. Nor is it out of harmony with the mode 
of expression still made use of, and still most readily under- 
stood, by the great mass of mankind regarding God’s opera- 
tions in the world. 
