THOUGHTS ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 23 
It is not necessary to remind electricians that insulating 
matter may have a higher or lower rate of conductive 
capacity, all that is necessary for it to be able to insulate, 
however imperfectly, is that it should not conduct as well as 
the matter along which the lightning finds its path. This 
suggests the thought that electricity is of the nature of 
material motion and stress within an envelope, or it may be 
several envelopes with varying degrees of insulation. This 
envelope may be of air, or other matter, or of other matter 
within air or mixed with air. Electrical engineers insert 
linings within their insulating covers, and nature often dces 
the same. They may have one cell, or many cells grouped 
in innumerable ways, that is also nature’s method. At their 
best they only feebly follow her. Here we approach what is 
very suggestive with regard to wireless telegraphy. It 
appears probable that the motion connected with this 
phenomena is electricity until it leaves the antenna, and that 
then it is transformed into mere material motion, in the form 
of wave motion of the ether, unless we make our definition of 
electricity too loose for practical purposes. When we look out 
into the infinity of nature we see the difficulty of a precise 
definition ; heat (which is material motion) appears to shade 
off imperceptibly into electricity (which is material motion 
in a certain condition of stress), and back again from 
electricity to heat. This is nature’s way to solve by imper- 
ceptible gradations (although she can act in cataclysms), we 
see it not only in this case, but in so many, in the gradations 
from non-living to living, of vegetable and animal, etc. 
Nature does not in order to oblige us continually work by 
creations, (unless the word be used figuratively, to cover 
much), but by evolutions, and by imperceptible gradations 
to great effects. Adumbrations and gradual blendings 
onward to the completed picture, and gallery after gallery of 
