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is said to have great isolating “power ”— gold great conduct- 
ing “power” It is held to be impossible to think of these 
substances apart from these “ powers ,” but quite easy to think 
of such “powers” apart from these substances. Ihe case 
may be just reversed, however, if we make sure of what we 
really mean by “matter” and what by “powers” What is 
called electricity is nothing, as Grove so strikingly teaches, 
but a peculiar state of motion among the particles of an elec- 
trified substance, just as heat is another peculiar state of 
motion in similar particles. Conduction is nothing but the 
passing of this peculiar movement from one portion of a 
material substance to another. Isolation is the arrestment of 
this peculiar motion so that it does not pass. The particles of 
shellac do not transmit the motion while the particles of gold 
do so. But this motion is only a state of these particles and 
the absence of the motion is equally a state. In themselves 
the motion and the stillness are absolutely nothing. They can 
be thought of, apart from that which is in motion, or which is 
still, only as nothing. As Mr. Grove says, “the thing heat 
is unknown,” so certainly the thing motion is unknown; so is 
the thing electricity. This is not all. That state of the sub- 
stance called shellac which is spoken of as the “ Power of 
isolation, and that state of the substance which is. called gold 
which is called the “Power” of conduction, are just as little 
things as heat. The things isolation and conduction, apart 
from the substances isolated or electrified, are unknown. These 
states of things can never be things themselves. The difficulty 
of thinkino' of a substance apart from its states or qualities, is 
just the difficulty of thinking of the existence of an object 
apart from some mode of existence ; but that difficulty does 
not necessitate our converting the mode of being into the 
being itself, nor of our converting the being into its mode ol 
existence. Our thought of two involves our thought of one, 
so our thought of existence involves our thought of a mode ot 
that existence. But, as the necessary thought involved m the 
thouokt of the two, is just as good a thought as that m which 
it is involved, so the thought of a mode of existence is just as 
good a thought as that of existence itself, and the thougnt of 
substance as good as that of quality, or mode of subsistence. 
Mr. Faraday is sadly misled in his thinking for want of per- 
ceiving these truths. For example he speaks of— “ Molecules 
of something specially material, having powers attached m 
and around them,”— as if this were the idea of those who be- 
lieve in the substantial existence of matter. Now, you can 
never speak of the motion of a wheel, for instance, as a power 
“ attached to the wheel,” or “ gathered around it. It is a 
