408 On Electricity and its Present Applications. [July, 
That no discovery should have been made hitherto of^this 
radiant form of matter in all the analyses th a 
made of atmospheric air is not to be wondered at 1 he re 
are indeed, more things in heaven and earth than are 
dreamed of in our philosophy. Organised and hvmg ^o , 
p-erms of many kinds of living organisms which are no 
believed — indeed proved— to exist abundantly m the air an 
to subserve important funftions in Nature, were never, nor 
ran even vet be visibly, detefted in it. And how mcon- 
ceivably small must those odoriferous particles 1* 
^ * 7 a“ - ^sleps^^ k-consieffir 
hof minute they must be to be spread for miles aero s the 
ground so as to serve as a sure guide to the dog, who is shU 
more highly endowed in this respedt than ma . 
nitely ‘numerous and minute these atoms must be, and _ how 
mmnletelv beyond the power of deteaion, except thioug 
the special sense of smell with which God has P rovld f d 
And so the elearic or “ radiant ” matter, as it is called by 
Mr. Crookes, in an inexpressibly attenuated form, is ^ 
mnre likelv to have escaped deteaion. But n w 
Shh in this very feasible theory of the universal diffusion 
of matter we may find ourselves in a better position for 
sLffig and understanding, to some sma l extent, God s 
method in the creation and government ot the world. 
Taking therefore for granted the existence 
matter or ether,— or chaos, as some might cal it,— we must 
2so admit the’ probability that this ether is continuous 
through space — throughout interstellar space, we may . y, 
Aand g toat U contains in itself the materials out ot which 
all things were and are made: the stars, worlds, comets, 
aerolites 8 , and whatever is gyrating and circulating tbroug 
ocean. If the proportion of mattei thus held n 
solution by Electron be inconceivably small, yet as it extends 
through a^space that is, we may say, infinitely great, and is 
also continSally replenished by his solvent power it may 
therefore be admitted to be sufficient m amoun or tire tu- 
nendous purposes we have supposed. Out ot the mattei 
thus diffused through the ocean of space we can leadily 
believe all things to have been made, the ether itself having 
been “in the beginning ,” created, but “ without form and void, 
by T‘ie fdratity— oShMhomogeneity— of the material of 
which the universal Cosmos is composed may be also inferred 
from the composition of those aerolites which aie fiom tim 
to time projected, or rather I should say drawn, by giavi 
