336 On Electricity and its Present Applications. [June, 
mingle with each other — which by means of heat, air, water, 
and other media they can be made to do — he can make them 
change their arrangements, and can subjedt them to such 
magical transformations that they become entirely new sub- 
stances, with appearance and qualities essentially different 
from their previous condition. That he is the immediate 
agent in effecting this may be fairly inferred from the analo- 
gous work he is known to do on a larger and visible scale, 
as well as on other reliable scientific grounds. 
We can easily see the results and the accompaniments of 
this great spirit’s working in many of the phenomena of the 
world, but no man has ever yet seen him actually at work or 
discovered his precise modus operandi. When God made 
himself known to Elijah it was not in the tempest, the 
earthquake, or the fire, but in the still small voice in the 
Desert. And so it is that the silent and secluded chamber 
of the scientist is also the most congenial and favoured 
place for contemplating the working of His great minister 
on the Earth. By long-continued transformations of the 
kind described he has changed, and is still changing, the 
aspedt and condition of the surface of the world, and it is 
by a knowledge of these powers, and by the wisdom to take 
advantage of them, that most important results both to the 
initiated scientists, and, through them, to the world at large, 
are to be obtained. Out of three or four elementary sub- 
stances, for instance, he can, under propitious circumstances, 
form a vast number of things, of very diverse qualities, 
adapted to enrich, sustain, and beautify the world and its 
inhabitants. Like a skilful general, or a clever master of 
ceremonies, he can place his subjects (small and invisible to 
us as they individually are) in all manner of composite 
groups, and in every variety of arrangement, and by his 
signal of command can make innumerable hosts of them 
embrace and coalesce, so as to constitute new masses, pos- 
sessed of a character and qualities very different from those 
they had before, as well as from some other groups composed 
of the same elements. By operating through means of the 
different degrees of mutual affedtian between these atoms 
and their chief, and for each other, he can bring about a 
sharp and rapid conflidt amongst them, leading to their 
separation and rearrangement, so as to form new groups 
with charadters and powers very different from those be- 
longing to the previous groups, or to the individuals com- 
posing them. Individuals previously harmless or benign 
he will sometimes combine together, so as to form a band of 
poisonous murderers. Awkward and spiritless dolts he can 
