Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/254

 varied forms of activity of which electricity or ether is capable.

It has been observed how the various forms of attraction have their unity in gravity. Likewise the forces of heat, light, and electricity have their unity in the highest substance of the sun.

In regarding the sun as the origin of natural forces, which are conveyed to the earth by means of the aura and ether, it may seem difficult for substances so refined as these to produce the effects attributed to them; but the difficulty is overcome, in the reflection that grosser matter receives all of its forces therefrom, and consequently that these higher substances not only act upon the body of matter, but they also rule as the forces that give matter its properties. For instance, it may seem impossible for an atmosphere so rare as ether to melt by its electrical forces a bar of brass, but it is not to be conceived that ether seizes the particles of the metal and tears them from mutual embrace as with a pair of pincers, but rather that it affects directly the metal's attraction and thence, as it were in an internal way, overcomes the cohesion; whereupon the particles become loosened, and form a fluid, a gas, or a vapor.

All kinds of electricity are the same as to substance, whether produced by friction, chemicals,