Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations Demonstrating the existence of spirits and their communion with mortals. Doctrine of the spirit world respecting heaven, hell, morality, and God. Also, the influence of Scripture on the morals of Christians. (part 4 of 4)

Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations Demonstrating the existence of spirits and their communion with mortals. Doctrine of the spirit world respecting heaven, hell, morality, and God. Also, the influence of Scripture on the morals of Christians. (part 4 of 4)

1984. An image or statue does not speak; it suggests nothing cruel, unjust, or indecent to the worshipper; neither do any of the objects usually treated as idols. It must evidently be an error to accuse idolaters of contemplating the inert image to which they kneel, as their God. They must see that it neither does nor can do any thing. They must perceive that, fixed in one place, the image cannot have that ubiquity or efficacy, essential to divine power. It follows that the object of adoration must be an invisible power associated with the idol, which may occupy the image only when invoked. In every temple devoted to Jupiter there might be a statue of Jupiter, and yet it was never held that there was more than one Jupiter. From the verses subjoined, from Pope’s translation of the Iliad, it appears that Homer gave to Jupiter a supremacy which made the other deities bear to him no higher relation than that which the archangels do to God, according to Christianity:

1985. “Let down our golden everlasting chain, Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main; Strive all, of mortal or immortal birth, To drag by this the Thunderer down to earth. Ye strive in vain. If I but lift this hand, I heave the heavens, the ocean, and the land; For such I reign, unbounded and above, And such are men and gods compared to Jove.”

1986. But when a book is made the word of God, which patronizes men as belonging to a chosen seed who are guilty of cruelty, robbery, fraud, massacre in cold blood, it becomes a more active and mischievous idol than any dumb beast, image, or statue can be. An idolater worships a silent idol as the representative of God. The idol cannot say, “I am a jealous God: I wax hot in my wrath.”

1987. Mr. Mahan urges, that the sufferings undergone by martyrs to Christianity is evidence of its truth, whereas, it seems to me that it only proves the conviction of the parties, which, if displayed by a dervise or a fakir, would be called bigotry. But if suffering in a cause is evidence in its favour, there have been sufferers on the other side, as well as on that which this author has undertaken to uphold. It is but fair, if those who suffer for one side should have their suffering held up as proof of their conscientiousness, the same conscientiousness should be conceded to those who have suffered for the other. The author of the pages I am about to quote, the Rev. Robert Taylor, was, for want of a better answer to his publication, condemned to Oakam Jail, in England, for one year. It was there he wrote his Diagesis, copies of which may be had of Mr. Curtis, No. 34 Arch street, as well as other books which may assist readers to form an opinion for themselves. I shall quote some pages from this work, which, being studied after reading Mahan’s arrogant allegations, will make good the old saying, that “One story is good until another is told.”

1988. “The ordinary notion, that the four gospels were written by the persons whose names they bear, and that they have descended to us from original autographs of Matthew and John, immediate disciples, and of Mark and Luke, contemporaries and companions, of Christ, in like manner as the writings of still more early poets and historians have descended to us from the pens of the authors to whom they are attributed, is altogether untenable. It has been entirely surrendered by the most able and ingenuous Christian writers, and will no longer be maintained by any but those whose zeal outruns their knowledge, and whose recklessness and temerity of assertion can serve only to dishonour and betray the cause they so injudiciously seek to defend.

1989. “The surrender of a position which the world has for ages been led to consider impregnable, by the admission of all that the early objection of the learned Christian Bishop, FAUSTUS the Manichean, implied, when he pressed Augustine with that bold challenge which Augustine was not able to answer, that,[47] ‘It was certain that the New Testament was not written by Christ himself, nor by his apostles, but a long while after them, by some unknown persons, who, lest they should not be credited when they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with, affixed to their works the names of apostles, or of such as were supposed to have been their companions, asserting that what they had written themselves was written ACCORDING TO those persons to whom they ascribed it.’

1990. “This admission has not been held to be fatal to the claims of divine revelation, nor was it held to be so even by the learned Father himself who so strenuously insisted on it, since he declares his own unshaken faith in Christ’s mystical crucifixion, notwithstanding.

1991. “Adroitly handled as the passage has been by the ingenuity of theologians, it has been made rather to subserve the cause of the evidences of the Christian religion than to injure it. Since, though it be admitted that the Christian world has ‘all along been under a delusion’ in this respect, and has held these writings to be of higher authority than they really are; yet the writings themselves and their authors are innocent of having contributed to that delusion, and never bore on them, nor in them, any challenge to so high authority as the mistaken piety of Christians has ascribed to them, but did all along profess no more than to have been written, as Faustus testifies, not BY, but ACCORDING to, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and by persons of whom indeed it is not known who or what they were, nor was it of any consequence that it should be, after the general acquiescence of the church had established the sufficient correctness of the compilations they had made.

1992. “And here the longo post tempore (the great while after) is a favourable presumption of the sufficient opportunity that all persons[48] had, of knowing and being satisfied that the gospels which the church received were indeed all that they purported to be; that is, faithful narrations of the life and doctrines of Christ according to what could be collected from the verbal accounts which his apostles had given, or by tradition been supposed to have given, and, as such, ‘worthy of all acceptation.’

1993. “The objection of Faustus becomes from its own nature the most indubitable and inexceptionable evidence, carrying us up to the very early age, the fourth century, in which he wrote, with a demonstration that the gospels were then universally known and received under the precise designation, and none other, than that with which they have come down to us, even as the gospels, respectively, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

1994. “Of course there can be no occasion to pursue the inquiry into the authenticity of the Christian Scriptures lower down than the fourth century.

1995. “1. Though, in that age, there was no established canon or authoritative declaration that such and none other than those which have come down to us were the books which contained the Christian rule of faith.

1996. “2. And though ‘no manuscript of these writings now in existence is prior to the sixth century, and various readings which, as appears from the quotations of the Fathers, were in the text of the Greek Testament are to be found in none of the manuscripts which are at present remaining.’—Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 160.

1997. “3. And though many passages which are now found in these Scriptures were not contained in any ancient copies whatever.

1998. “4. And though ‘in our common editions of the Greek Testament are MANY readings which exist not in a single manuscript, but are founded on MERE CONJECTURE.’ —Marsh’s Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 496.

1999. “5. And though ‘it is notorious, that the orthodox charge the heretics with corrupting the text, and that the heretics recriminate upon the orthodox.’—Unitarian New Version, p. 121.

2000. “6. And though ‘it is an undoubted fact that the heretics were in the right in many points of criticism where the Fathers accused them of wilful corruption.’—Bp. Marsh, vol. ii. p. 362.

2001. “7. And though ‘it is notorious that forged writings under the names of the apostles were in circulation almost from the apostolic age.’—See 2 Thess. ii. 2, quoted in Unitarian New Version.[49]

2002. “8. And though, ‘not long after Christ’s ascension into heaven, several histories of his life and doctrines, full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by persons whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superstition and ignorance.’—Mosheim, vol. i. p. 109.

2003. “9. And though, says the great Scaliger, ‘They put into their Scriptures whatever they thought would serve their purpose.’[50]

2004. “10. And though, ‘notwithstanding those twelve known infallible and faithful judges of controversy, (the twelve apostles,) there were as many and as damnable heresies crept in, even in the apostolic age, as in any other age, perhaps, during the same space of time.’—Reeve’s Preliminary Discourse to the Commonitory of Vincentius Lirinensis, p. 190.

2005. “11. And though there were in the manuscripts of the New Testament, at the time of editing the last printed copies of the Greek text, upward of ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THOUSAND various readings.”—Unitarian New Version, p. 22.

2006. “12. And though ‘the confusion unavoidable in these versions (the ancient Latin, from which all our European versions are derived) had arisen to such a height, that St. Jerome, in his Preface to the Gospels, complains that no one copy resembled another.’—Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 119.

2007. “13. And though the Gospels fatally contradict each other; that is, in several important particulars, they do so to such an extent as no ingenuity of supposition has yet been able to reconcile: after Marsh, Michaelis, and the most learned critics, have stuck, and owned the conquest.

2008. “14. And though the difference of character between the three first Gospels and that ascribed to St. John is so flagrantly egregious, that the most learned Christian divines and profoundest scholars have frankly avowed that the Jesus Christ of St. John is a wholly different character from the Jesus Christ of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; and that their account and his should both be true is flatly impossible.[51]

2009. “15. And though such was the idolatrous adulation paid to the authority of Origen, that emendations of the text which were but suggested by him were taken in as part of the New Testament; though he himself acknowledged that they were supported by the authority of no manuscript whatever.—Marsh, in loco.

2010. “16. And though, even so late as the period of the Reformation, we have whole passages which have been thrust into the text, and thrust out, just as it served the turn which the Protestant tricksters had to serve.

2011. “17. And though we have on record the most indubitable historical evidence of a general censure and correction of the Gospels having been made at Constantinople, in the year 506, by order of the Emperor Anastasius.[52]

2012. “18. And though we have like unquestionable historical evidence of measureless and inappreciable alterations of the same having been made by our own Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the avowed purpose of accommodating them to the faith of the orthodox.”[53]

Evidence of Josephus and Gibbon vs. Mr. Mahan.

2013. The silence of Josephus respecting Christ induced some Christians to concoct the pious fraud of interpolating in his history a notice of the career and crucifixion of Christ, but subsequent Christian writers have detected and exposed the interpolation; so that the history alluded to, written soon after Christ’s death by the distinguished Hebrew, contains no notice of those events; and, from the following passage in Gibbon, it appears that it did not awaken much attention among the Romans. Yet Mahan, assuming the opposite to be true, urges it as evidence of the evangelical account, that the phenomena drew universal attention.

2014. “How shall we excuse,” says Gibbon, “the supine inattention of the pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? This miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects or received the earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of nature—earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses—which his indefatigable curiosity could collect; both one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe.” (Gibbon, vol. ii. chap. xv. p. 379.)

The Worshippers of the Golden Calf more righteous than their Assassins.

2015. The example is set in the Old Testament of attributing the worst motives to every one who does not concur with the accusers in religious opinions. I conscientiously believe that the Israelites who made the golden calf were at least as righteous in their worship as those who treacherously and cruelly massacred them in obedience to an order strangely represented as sanctioned by Jehovah: “Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out of the camp, and slay every man his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbour; and the children of Levi did according to the words of Moses, and there fell of the people on that day about three thousand men.”

2016. Obviously, the only way in which those who, with Mr. Mahan, can find any pretence for ascribing this horrible sanguinary order to the inspiration of God, is by treating idolatry as so wicked as to be punished, not only in the immediate transgressor, but in his offspring to the third and fourth generation. Is it not a fairer way of viewing this affair to infer that Moses and his partisans were covetous, unprincipled men, who did not hesitate at swindling, lying, massacre, or any measures requisite to give him and them ascendency? Was there ever a greater analogy between the measures of any two evil-doers than those of Mohammed and Moses, both professing communion with God, which we now know could not have taken place, and both pleading his commands to exercise the most horrible intolerance at home, as well as cruel rapacity abroad?

2017. Mohammed appears to have been more successful than Moses in convincing his followers of his mission. There seems to have been a great distrust of Moses, which he artfully always ascribes to the impiety of the unbelievers; like all other religious impostors, identifying his word with that of God. Nothing but his inability to convince the skeptics of the divine origin of his mission could have induced them to worship idols in opposition to his remonstrance; and the fact that Aaron assisted them in casting the golden calf, can only be explained by his participation in the heresy. Does not this alleged conduct on the part of Aaron render the whole affair so absurd as to throw doubt over the whole history? Moses, while killing the malcontents, could hardly avoid punishing their ringleader. Moreover, how could one who would assist in idolatrous worship, be fit to hold the office of high-priest, into which he was soon afterward installed with great pomp?

2018. It is perfectly clear, to my mind, that a pagan who sincerely worships any thing as his God, really worships God. He stands in the same relation to his God that a debtor stands to his real creditor when paying a forged draft.

2019. Wicked priests have raised a cry against idolaters, as the real thief strives, by calling after some innocent person within view, to divert the hue and cry from himself. As an exemplification of this species of wickedness, I quote here a speech made to the Emperor Constantius by Julius Firmicius Maternus, (Taylor’s Diagesis, page 144:)

2020. (Addressing the Emperor Constantius.) “Take away, take away, in perfect security,” exclaims this self-called Christian priest, “O most holy emperor, take away all the ornaments of their temples. Let the fire of the mint or the flames of the mines melt down their gods. Seize upon all their wealthy endowments, and turn them to your own use and property. And, O most sacred emperor, it is absolutely necessary for you to revenge and punish this evil. You are commanded by the law of the Most High God to persecute all sorts of idolatry with the utmost severity; hear and commend to your own sacred understanding what God himself commands. He commands you not to spare your son or your brother; he bids you plunge the avenging knife even into the heart of your wife that sleeps in your bosom; to persecute your dearest friend with a sublime severity; and to arm your whole people against these sacrilegious pagans, and tear them limb from limb. Yea, even whole cities, if you should find this guilt in them, must be cut off. O most holy emperor, God promises you the rewards of his mercy, upon condition of your thus acting. Do, therefore, what he commands, complete what he prescribes.”

2021. It should be recollected that this diabolical address was made to the Christian son and successor of Constantine. Can there be a more shocking picture of the mischievous consequences of the example and doctrines of Moses as respects idolaters? Certainly, Constantius was not any better for his Christianity, when he could listen, without indignation, to such wicked suggestions!

2022. It is alleged that in the city of Thessalonica the Emperor Theodosius put to death all the pagans that breathed, in obedience to Christianized Mosaic intolerance, which in modern times was carried out in the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day, and the Inquisition. Such were the effects of the propagation of Christianity, with the appendage of the Pentateuch to the swordlike attributes with which Christ endowed himself: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come not to send peace, but a sword!” Matt. x. 34.

2023. Shakspeare truly makes one of his characters say that whosoever takes away the good name of another commits a more wicked theft than one who takes a purse. But in this portrait of the effect of calumny there is one important feature omitted, which is sometimes the most injurious: I allude to the pain of mind created by a false accusation. If, as I have before urged, it be wrong to hurt the flesh by a blow, is it not wrong to hurt the soul by calumny? The sting of the fangs of the viper, no less than the paw of the lion, may give a mortal infliction; but no less painful may be the effect of a false human tongue. Is it not as great a wrong to wound a man’s soul as his flesh? Yet there never has been any hesitation on the part of sectarians to express any painful opinion as to heretics or idolaters. The word infidel, so much more deserved by themselves for their violation of the precepts they profess, is used as a matter of course, and, coupling with an error in worship a heinous sinfulness, the idolater is always in the wrong. But reasonably, upon the grounds which have been advanced in the preceding portion of this work, (1245,) idolatry may be an imputation against the intellectual pretension, but not against the integrity, of the worshipper; and for one I consider the propensity to the worship of idols displayed throughout the whole of the Jewish history, and even by Solomon the “Wise,” as a strong proof that there never was sufficient evidence presented to the Jews of the divine origin of the books of Moses, or any others represented as conveying God’s holy word.

2024. It is not doing as we would be done by to accuse any worshipper of bad motives, for the reasons which I have above given; and when it is considered how unwilling people are to part with their property, the fact that the Israelites gave their gold ornaments to enable Aaron to cast a golden calf, shows that they sincerely believed that their worship would be acceptable to some deity who had the best claim to their acknowledgment. If they mistook the object, it must have been an error of the understanding, which it would have been evidently more reasonable to have corrected by reasoning and evidence, than by punishment.

2025. While such eminent men as Mahan, and the learned Goliah of my mundane guardian spirit, will hold up this, to my mind, barbarous and preposterous Pentateuch as the word of God, I am obliged to meet them upon the ground thus stated; but there are other highly respectable clergymen, who concur in questioning that the Pentateuch existed until after the return of the Jews from their captivity; and there is evidence, agreeably to the quotations I have made, that this alleged work of divine inspiration, or word of God, as stated in the Second Book of Chronicles, and 22d chapter of the Second Book of Kings, has no better foundation than the word of the priest Hilkiah and his accomplices.

2026. The Rev. Mr. Norton, in a laborious investigation, shows that, according to internal evidence, almost all the important facts stated in Genesis and Exodus are inconsistent with each other or the circumstances under which they are alleged to have happened.

2027. Mr. Mahan conceives that the willingness of the believers in the gospel to sacrifice their lives in testimony of the sincerity of their conviction proves the truth of revelation. Wherefore, then, does not their exposure to the slaughtering sword of the partisans of Moses prove the sincerity of the Israelites in their worship of their idol? No wise knave would do any thing so absurd. History shows that many of those who have been most willing to make sacrifices for their belief have been great fanatics. Their willingness to suffer only proves the intensity of their belief, not the truth of the miracles which they believe.

2028. Having first assumed, contrary to the fact, that the mission of Christ was generally accredited in the contemporaneous pagan communities, Mr. Mahan claims this to be evidence of the facts stated by the evangelists.

2029. But if the belief in a mission by contemporaries is evidence in its favour, is not the disbelief of contemporaries evidence on the other side? Is not the fact that Moses could only expel idolatry from the Hebrews by the sword, a proof that he was unable to convince them by any adequate evidence of his claims to inspiration?

2030. This surmise, respecting the inadequacy of the facts and reasoning which Moses had to advance in favour of his pretensions as a missionary of Jehovah, appears to be fully justified in the history given by Josephus. From the following language, which this distinguished Jewish historian alleges to have been held by one of the Israelites, it is evident that Moses was then viewed as no better than Mohammed or any of the usurping popes of Christendom. While Protestants sanction such religious despots as Moses and Samuel, they ought not to complain of the papal despots of Christendom, (note to 1091.)

Just denunciation of the religious imposture and usurpation of Moses, by noble-minded Israelites.[54]

2031. “Corah, an Hebrew of great wealth and influence, and famous for his eloquence, becoming jealous of the dignity to which Moses had attained, raised a clamour against him among the Levites who were of the same tribe, by suggesting to them, in an occasional harangue, ‘That it redounded to their dishonour thus tamely to suffer Moses, under pretence of the divine command, to retain unlimited authority, vest the priesthood in his brother Aaron without their suffrages, and bestow places of honour and profit at pleasure.’ He added, ‘that these measures were the more oppressive and grievous as founded on the arts of sophistry and insinuation; that those who are conscious of deserving posts of dignity endeavour to obtain them not by force, but mild persuasion; that it was the interest of a state to check the ambition of such aspiring individuals, before they acquired an influence that might prove destructive.’ He demanded by what authority Moses had conferred the priesthood on Aaron and his sons, enforcing his own title as superior to theirs, both by descent and property.”

2032. In consequence of this, Moses addresses the following prayer, which certainly is as remote from the sentiments which the precepts of Christ would call for, as any which can be imagined:

2033. “Testify thy wonted kindness to the Hebrews by inflicting condign punishment on Dathan and Abiram, for suggesting that thy purposes are opposed by my arts. Visit these detractors from thy glory with exemplary vengeance. Let the earth on which they tread swallow them up, with their families and substance, to the manifestation of thy power, and as an example to posterity not to think unworthily of the Majesty of heaven.”

2034. Mr. Mahan urges that those who sacrificed their lives for a cause must have had good reason for their course. What are we, then, to think of Zimri the Hebrew, who used the following language to Moses, and was, as well as those who concurred with him in opinion, murdered in consequence, not after trial, but by Lynch law, as will appear from the sequel?[55]

2035. “‘Moses, you are at liberty to contend for the use and observance of your own laws, which have obtained a sanction and authority by long custom alone, or you would have been brought to merited disgrace and punishment, and found, to your cost, that the Hebrews were not to be deluded by your arts. I will never subject myself to your tyrannical decrees, assured that, under a pretext of regard to religion and law, you seek to enslave us, and establish a supreme authority over us, by denying us those liberties to which all free-born men have an undoubted right. Was there a more grievous oppression during the whole course of an Egyptian bondage than the power you usurped of punishing every man by laws of your own formation? You particularly deserve punishment for abrogating and annulling those customs, laws, and privileges which are authorized and established by the common consent of nations, and preferring the suggestions of your fancy to rules so generally followed and rationally founded. Conscious that I have done nothing wrong, I now frankly declare, in this assembly, that I have married a strange woman. This I confess with an honest boldness, and would do the same in the face of the world. I also worship the gods whom thou hast forbidden to be worshipped, as I do not hold myself bound to submit to your arbitrary sway either in matters of law or religion, but must assert the liberty of investigating the truth for myself, and directing my own personal concerns.’

2036. “Zimri, in this speech, delivered the general sentiment of the whole faction, while the multitude silently waited the issue of his presumptuous conduct, for they apprehended much confusion would ensue.”

2037. But one of Moses’s partisans did not allow this noble asserter of the rights of human nature to survive this bold stand long, as will appear from the rest of the narrative, which thus proceeds:

2038. “His contumacy and flagrantly insolent behaviour to Moses raised the resentment of one Phineas to the highest degree. He was a youth eminent for the dignity of his family, his singular prowess, and his personal virtues. Eleazar the high-priest being his father, he was nearly allied to the great lawgiver. Sensible that to suffer such indignity to pass with impunity would bring both the religion and the laws of the Hebrews into contempt, he determined to make an example of the ringleader of the faction, as his exalted rank would cause that example to have a greater influence on the minds of the people. His resolution being equal to his zeal, he repaired, without delay, to the tent of Zimri, and at one stroke slew both him and Cobi his wife. This resolute act excited an emulation among those of his contemporaries who still maintained a regard for the honour of their country, to avenge themselves on those who had done it violation; inasmuch that they fell most furiously upon the faction, and put great numbers of them to the sword.”

2039. Where is the true-hearted son of Columbia who would not have been among those who fell with Zimri, for the right of choosing his wife and his religion according to his own judgment?

Remarkable observance of the Golden Rule by Moses, in his last advice to the Israelites.[56]

2040. “‘Wherefore, to avoid this danger of apostasy from the worship of the God of your fathers, suffer not any of your enemies to live after you have conquered them; but esteem it highly conducive to your interest to destroy them all, lest, if you permit them to live, you become infected by their manners, and thereby corrupt your own institutions. I do further exhort you to overthrow their altars, temples, groves, and indeed to exterminate their nations with fire and sword. By these means alone the permanency of your happy constitution can be secured to you.’”

2041. Let these sentiments of Moses be compared with those of the great Cyrus, in which he justly adverts to the immortality of the soul. Moses was always worldly, and, as respects the lives of neighbouring pagans, so called, displayed no better morality than Thuggism on a great scale.

Straining at Spiritual Gnats, while swallowing Scriptural Camels.

2042. The question is put, Wherefore can spirits cause tappings on or tilting of tables, only when a medium is present? To those who believe in the Old Testament as the word of God, it may be in point to inquire, Wherefore the mere elevation of the hands of Moses, on a hill remote from the field of battle, enabled the Israelites to overcome their enemies, when the opposite result ensued when the hands of the veracious prophet were lowered, as agreeably to verses 11 and 12, chapter xvii. of Exodus?

2043. “And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’s hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat thereon, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.”

2044. It follows from the verses in question that the skill, strength, or courage of every Jewish combatant varied with the elevation or depression of the arms of Moses above or below a mean horizontal plane.

2045. Surely, the peculiar influences thus exercised by the author of the Pentateuch is at least as incredible as that by which the presence of a medium enables spirits to move ponderable bodies, when otherwise they could not move them. The influence ascribed to Moses is alleged to have been witnessed only on one occasion, whereas that attributed to media has been seen in a multiplicity of instances by living witnesses of good character, who will attest to the facts, as well as the media themselves.

2046. But, independently of the incredibility of this Mosaic miracle as an isolated fact discordant with the laws of nature and human experience, is it not incredible on account of its inconsistency with the just and humane idea of God which the truly pious entertain, that he should give this assistance to the Jews in their unchristian warfare? This reasoning is at least as applicable to the alleged arrestation of the sun, (involving that of the rotary motion of the earth,) in order that Joshua might make a further slaughter of the vanquished Canaanites. For this slaughter the prominent excuse seems to have been that Moses, wishing to possess the territory of the Canaanites, professed to have the authority of God for extirpating them as idolaters, agreeably to the following language, which is represented by Mr. Mahan and others as the word of God, (Deut. viii. 16, 20, 22:)

2047. “And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. Moreover, the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed. And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.”

The Evidence which is insufficient to establish the Iniquity of a Sinner cannot be sufficient to establish the Divine Authority of a Book.

2048. “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity or any sin: at the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall the matter be established,” (Deut. xix. 15.)

2049. Agreeably to the preceding quotation from Scripture, one witness is not sufficient to convict a man of any iniquity. Two witnesses, at least, are necessary to establish guilt. But if a single witness be insufficient to establish the iniquity of a man, how is it to be established, on the evidence of the priest Hilkiah alone, that the manuscript, which, as he represented, he had found in the temple, was the inspired code of Moses, or, as Mahan and others would have it, the word of God?

2050. Should the righteousness of a religious code be established by evidence insufficient to establish the iniquity of an individual? A fortiori, when, by proving the righteousness of a code, a whole generation was to be convicted of iniquity, was the evidence of one individual sufficient, especially when the iniquity thus to be adjudged was to draw down the unquenchable wrath of God, agreeably to Huldah the prophetess?

Word of God, impiously so called, or the Golden Rule inverted by God’s alleged Commands.

2051. “When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself: and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee,” (Deut. xx. 10-17.)

PAGAN FEARLESSNESS OF DEATH.

Opinion of Mr. Huc, a Christian Priest, that it is their religion which makes Christians more fearful of death than the Chinese, (746.)

2052. PARSON BERG and Bishop McIlvaine unjustly represent the doctrines of futurity, held by Christians, as causing those who believe in eternal punishment—in the horrible hell described by Josephus, and sanctioned by the gospel, with the precarious notions of heaven derived from the same authority—to have less fear of death than deists, by them called infidels. But I have known many deists die, and certainly I have never seen any believer in Christianity meet death with more firmness than those who did not believe. Some of the last-mentioned class have died of painful complaints with the most admirable equanimity. But to illustrate the injustice of these reverend gentlemen in their undue assumption of the superior fearlessness of death of those persons who believe in the gospel over those who do not so believe, I will here quote a passage from the travels of a Christian missionary, which describes the equanimity with which the Chinese meet death. From the work of the French missionary, Mr. Huc, it will be seen that death is contemplated with far less fearful apprehension in China than in Christendom.

Observations of the Missionary, Mr. Huc, to whom reference has just been made.

2053. “In no other country than China, perhaps, could men be heard exchanging compliments on the subject of a coffin. People (in Christendom) are most shy of mentioning the lugubrious objects destined to contain the mortal remains of a relation or friend; and when death does enter the house, the coffin is got in in secresy and silence, in order to spare the feelings of the mourning family. But it is quite otherwise in China; there a coffin is simply an article of the first necessity to the dead, and of luxury and fancy to the living. In the great towns you see them displayed in the shops with all sorts of tasteful decorations, painted, and varnished, and polished, and trimmed up to attract the eyes of passengers, and give them the fancy to buy themselves one.

2054. “People in easy circumstances, who have money to spare for their pleasures, scarcely ever fail to provide themselves beforehand with a coffin to suit their own taste, and which they consider becoming; and, until the moment arrives for lying down in it, it is kept in the house; not as an article of immediate necessity, but as one that cannot fail to be consoling and pleasant to the eye in a nicely-furnished apartment.

2055. “For well-brought up children, it is a favourite method of expressing the fervour of their filial piety toward the authors of their being, a sweet and tender consolation for the heart of a son, to be able to purchase a beautiful coffin for an aged father or mother, and come in state to present the gift at the moment when they least expect such an agreeable surprise. If one is not sufficiently favoured by fortune to be able to afford the purchase of a coffin in advance, care is always taken before ‘saluting the world,’ as the Chinese say, a sick person shall at least have the satisfaction of casting a glance at his last abode; and if he is surrounded by at all affectionate relations, they never fail to buy him a coffin and place it by the side of his bed.

2056. “In the country, this is not always so easy, for coffins are not kept quite ready, and, besides, peasants have not such luxurious habits as townspeople. The only way, then, is to send for the carpenter of the place, who takes the measure of the sick person, not forgetting to observe to him that it must be made a little longer than would seem necessary, because one always stretches out a little when dead. A bargain is then made concerning the length and breadth, and especially the cost; wood is brought, and the workmen set about their task in the yard, close to the chamber of the dying person, who is entertained with the music of the saw and the other tools, while death is at work with him, preparing him to occupy the snug abode when it is ready.

2057. “All this is done with the most perfect coolness, and without the slightest emotion, real or affected. We have ourselves witnessed such scenes more than once, and it has always been one of the things that most surprised us in the manners of this extraordinary country. A short time after our arrival in the mission of the north, we were walking one day in the country with a Chinese seminarist, who had the patience to reply to all our long and tedious questions about the men and things of the Celestial Empire. While we were keeping up the dialogue as well as we could, in a mixture of Latin and Chinese, using a word of one or the other as we found occasion, we saw coming toward us a rather numerous crowd, who advanced in an orderly manner along a narrow path. It might have been called a procession.

2058. “Our first impulse was to turn aside, and get into some safe corner behind a large hill; for, not having as yet much experience in the manners and customs of the Chinese, we had some hesitation in producing ourselves, for fear of being recognised and thrown into prison; possibly even condemned and strangled. The crowd had now come up with us, and we stood aside to let it pass. It was composed of a great number of villagers, who looked at us with smiling faces, and had the appearance of being uncommonly pleased. After them came a litter, on which was borne an empty coffin, and then another litter, upon which lay extended a dying man, wrapped in blankets. His face was haggard and livid, and his expiring eyes were fixed upon the coffin that preceded him. When every one had passed, we hastened to ask the meaning of this strange procession. ‘It is some sick man,’ said the seminarist, ‘who has been taken ill in a neighbouring village, and whom they are bringing home to his family. The Chinese do not like to die away from their own house.’ ‘That is very natural; but what is the coffin for?’ ‘For the sick man, who probably has not many days to live. They seem to have made every thing ready for his funeral.’ I remarked by the side of the coffin a piece of white linen. ‘That, they mean to use for the mourning.’

2059. “These words threw us in the most profound astonishment, and we saw then that we had come into a new world—into the midst of a people whose ideas and feelings differed widely from those of Europeans. These men quietly setting about to prepare for the funeral of a still living friend and relation—this coffin placed purposely under the eyes of the dying man, doubtless with the purpose of doing what was agreeable to him; all this plunged us into a strange reverie, and the walk was continued in silence. The astonishing calmness with which the Chinese see the approach of death does not fail when the last moment arrives. They expire with the most incomparable tranquillity, without any of the emotions, the agitations, the agonies that usually render the moment of death so terrific.”

2060. It is remarkable that Mr. Huc cites an “entire want of religious feeling, as among the causes of this indifference to death.”[57] But it may be inquired whether that can be a proper kind of religious feeling which interferes with equanimity at the prospect of our spiritual birth. I can easily believe Mr. Huc to be correct, if his entire want of religious feeling means the absence of all fear of an eternal broiling, like that of Dives.

2061. It is the absence of that sort of religion which this sectarian would teach; that which consigns the great majority of mankind to perpetual misery on account of their disbelief in Romanism.

2062. Widely different is the effect of the religion I have espoused. It has made a prodigious change in my feelings. I look forward to death with hope, rather than fear. (See page 32 (108) of this work for the different effect of Romanism on my mind.)

Conclusion of Strictures on Mr. Mahan’s Religious Errors.

2063. It will be observed that under the general head of Mr. Mahan’s errors, I have treated of not only those which he has advocated, but such as he sanctions by his general endorsement of Scripture. However, I here take my leave of Mr. Mahan and his errors.

CONCLUSION.

2064. In a work by the English bishop Warburton, is to be found the following allegation:

“The doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is not to be found in, nor did it make part of, the Mosaic dispensation.”

The Pentateuch inconsistently represented as the basis of belief in human immortality, as will appear by the prefixed quotation, as well as the inability of any of its devotees to point out any part which conflicts with the right reverend author’s opinion, above mentioned.—Injustice of representing disbelievers in the Bible as not having as good grounds for belief in immortality as those who rest their belief on a work which, by its silence, tends to discountenance the hope of a future life.—Those who uphold the Bible against Spiritualism, the real antagonists of the only satisfactory evidence ever given to man of a future habitation in the spirit world.

2065. Religious people all very justly insist on the immense importance of a belief in a future state of existence, in which we are to enjoy a degree of happiness in proportion to our good conduct in this life, or of misery in proportion as we do evil.

2066. Throughout Christendom I believe such a belief is necessary to render a person competent as a witness, or to hold any office. As it is assumed generally by Christians that there is no other proof of immortality than that alleged to be afforded by Scripture, unbelievers in Scripture are assumed to be unbelievers in a future state, and the most unfavourable insinuations are made respecting such persons, (1310.) Bishop McIlvaine, in his “Evidences,” has charitably represented that, as a class, such men are peculiarly vicious, and in their domestic relations immoral; not recollecting how far Christian prelates have been found wanting in the present, as well as in past times. But notwithstanding that the disbelief in a future state is held to be so universally pernicious in its influence, self-called orthodox Christians deem it impious not to bow before the Bible as the holy word of God, or to be wanting in respect for his inspired missionary, Moses. But admitting that the books found by Hilkiah (1940) were written, under divine inspiration, by Moses, how does it happen that those books and their author stand in such high estimation, when they actually give no evidence of immortality, but rather tend to prove that God, in communicating his will to Moses, thought it more important to give to the Jews directions for the decoration of a tabernacle, than to impart to them the invaluable knowledge of their eternal existence? Moreover, God is represented as holding in especial favour, those who did not think it of as much importance to inquire into the truth of immortality, as to obtain decorations for pharisaical worship. Why is Moses, a materialist, to be venerated, who so grossly trifled with his opportunities? There is either a flagitious misrepresentation, or he, of all men, had the best opportunity of learning this all-important truth; and therefore, dying ignorant of it, is proportionally more culpable. Wherefore is the uncandid and unfounded pretence resorted to, that attacking the Old Testament is attacking the basis of the hope of heaven, when, on the contrary, that record has really the opposite tendency—that of enfeebling the evidence of immortality?

2067. We see the heathen Cyrus, on his death-bed, (1980,) striving to impress upon his children a belief in immortality, while Moses, dying a worldly-minded, blood-thirsty materialist, employs his last moments in giving inhuman directions for the merciless massacre of every conquered pagan. Yet, while Bishop McIlvaine, as respects his contemporaries, represents materialism as irreconcilable with virtue, Moses is to be venerated and the books attributed to his authorship idolatrously worshipped as the word of God! But if the advocacy of any thing which tends to lessen the hope of immortality be culpable, is it not culpable, against the truths of Spiritualism to hold up a book which authorizes disbelief in immortality, and that, too, upon such questionable authority as an obscure priest and fanatical and barbarous autocrat? (1937.) As respects the gospel, it has, I hope, been shown that, with all the exertions of the good parson Harbaugh to exhibit the heaven of Scripture in its most favorable aspect, (777 to 805,) Spiritualism has immensely the advantage in the description given of the spirit world, (409 to 469,) sanctioned by the replies given to my queries under test conditions, (552).

2068. Another ground of pre-eminence is the perfect immunity from any association with such a priesthood as that described by the Right Rev. Bishop Hopkins. Media, replacing the priests, will owe their office to nature, not to any aristocracy, monarch, or theocrat, (1307).

2069. Private disinterested Media will always outnumber and control any of the same class who may attempt to acquire unfair ascendancy, even if, in the nature of the case, it were possible that such a wrong could be contemplated.

2070. I trust I have shown that the actual morals of Christendom are irreconcilable with the precepts of the gospel, which denounce wealth and enjoin submission to wrong, these morals being also inconsistent with the materialism of the books of Moses. Under these circumstances, let the reader turn to the evidence which has converted me from a prepossessed skeptic to a devout believer in spiritual communication. Let that glorious portraiture of the spirit-world be considered which has been opened to the view of mortals through the high spirits who have accredited me as one of their servants. I will not go over the evidence, nor recapitulate the arguments which I have already so fully urged upon the attention of my readers. I implore them to read with candour, and think earnestly of the facts and reasoning submitted in this volume.

P. S.—Explanation respecting Jesus Christ.

My spirit sister alleges that Christ never uttered the language recorded as his, and upon which I have commented. This being admitted, I wish that nothing which I have said may be considered as bearing personally on a Being who is so much the object of devotion with many of my dearest connections, relations, and friends. I wish that it should be considered that it is only upon the doctrines imputed to Christ, that I have intended to animadvert, not on Jesus himself. Surely I am justified as treating that language as coming from Jesus Christ, which is ascribed to him in the only history of his teachings which has come down to us, and which, under the name of the holy canonical gospel, is considered by more than three-fourths of all the Christians in existence as inspired by God!

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Appendix

Under this head I place some articles which could not be embodied in this work; but which it may nevertheless be expedient to place within the reach of certain readers. Among the articles referred to is the theory of electricity, which I first published in 1848, and which has been approved by the spirit of Franklin, and, in obedience to his advice, inserted in this volume. Unfortunately, there are but few persons sufficiently acquainted with the phenomena which form its basis, and the technical language employed by professed electricians, to find it agreeable to study the subject in question; but they may qualify themselves to do so by studying the elementary works on this branch of science.

LETTER TO THE EPISCOPAL CLERGY.

Although the subjoined letter has been published in various channels, as well as in a separate pamphlet, I deem it proper to record it in this work, as, otherwise, many who may see the one might not see the other. It will be perceived that the substance of my second letter has been already incorporated in the preceding pages, (714 to 776.) Of course it is to the first letter that I now allude, and which I intend to record here.

Letter from Dr. Hare to the Clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, offering to lay before them the New Evidence of Immortality. (Submitted to the late Convention, Philadelphia, May 15, 1855.)

REVEREND AND DEAR SIRS: Having, from my youth, been on friendly terms with the clergy of the Episcopal Church, within the pale of which I was born and christened; having, in fact, had among the clergy of that church some excellent friends and relatives,—it has been a source of regret that I have not been able to see doctrines deeply affecting the happiness of mankind in the same light. I am, however, fully sensible of the kindness and courtesy with which I have been treated by clergymen in general, and especially by those of the church above designated. I have always been under the belief that in no part of the globe, nor at any period of human history, has a priesthood existed as moral, as sincere, and truly pious as those of my country; and among that priesthood, I believe, none have stood higher in these qualifications than such as are of the Episcopal Church.

It is happy for me that of late I have, in one respect, found myself more in accordance with the Christian clergy: I allude here to the awakening of perfect confidence in the immortality of the soul. There was on this subject, heretofore, this difference between my sentiments and those of my clerical friends, that while I hoped for a future state, I was no less skeptical respecting the evidence of witnesses who lived some thousand years ago than of those who have, in modern times, alleged themselves to have witnessed supernatural manifestations. I required in the former case, no less than in the latter, intuitive proof; or the consistent testimony of independent observers having sufficient sense, knowledge, and integrity to make reliable witnesses.

Happily, in the case of Spiritualism, both of these tests have been afforded to me, so that I now believe in a future state no less firmly than the orthodox Christian.

Like St. Paul, in the case of Christianity, I entered upon the investigation of Spiritualism with a view to refutation; but the very instruments which I contrived to accomplish that object produced the opposite effect.

If human testimony is not to be taken when advanced by contemporaries known to be conscientious, truthful, and well informed, how is it to be relied on with respect to those of whom we know nothing available beside what their own writings mention?

I am prepared to submit a communication respecting the spirit world from my father, sanctioned by a convocation of spirits, whose approbation was manifested by means which no mortal could pervert.

The practical influence on my mind has been to make me far more happy, to remove all fear of death, and to render me more watchful as to my deportment in life. I know that my sainted parents, and other relatives and friends, my children who died in infancy, are around me, witnessing every act and exercising a limited power over my safety and my health.

Mourning for the dead now seems to be groundless, and at all events can be indulged only upon selfish considerations. But who would grieve deeply at a transient separation, even for years, from friends made happier by the change, when sure of a happy reunion ultimately?

No evidence of any important truth in science can be shown to be more unexceptionable than that which I have received of this glorious fact, that heaven is really “at hand,” and that our relatives, friends, and acquaintances who are worthy of happiness, while describing themselves as ineffably happy, are still progressing to higher felicity; and while hovering aloft in our midst, are taking interest in our welfare with an augmented zeal or affection, so that, by these means, they may be a solace to us, in despite of death.

As the reverend clergy of the Episcopal Church are about to meet in Philadelphia, I deem it my duty to afford them an opportunity of hearing the evidence on which I rely; and which, with due effort, they can have subjected to their own intuition.

Should the clergy deem it expedient to listen to my exposition, I shall be ready to answer any queries which may be made.

I am aware that there may be considerations which may justify the clergy in declining to hear me. I have never, in my own case, deemed it wise to seek abstract right at the expense of practical evil. I would not urge persons in certain official stations to become converts to Spiritualism, lest it should, by consequent unpopularity, interfere with their usefulness, as in the case of Judge Edmonds; and a like objection must arise as to the conversion of clergymen, so far as to bring their convictions in competition with their professional vocation. Orthodox Christians are generally educated to believe not only that the revelation on which they rely is true, but that no other can be justifiable. Hence they are evidently displeased that spiritualists should allege themselves to have come by other means to that belief in immortality which is admitted on all sides to be the greatest comfort under the afflictions to which temporal life is liable.

There is, moreover, this discordancy in doctrine: Agreeably to Scripture, man is placed here for probation, and is liable to be eternally punished if he prove delinquent. According to Spiritualism, man is placed here for progression, and when he goes to the next world, still will have the opportunity to progress, however wicked he may be when he departs this life.

It is conceived by spiritualists that if, as the orthodox allege, God be omnipotent, he can make his creatures to suit his will; if he be omniscient, he must know what they are when made; and if he be prescient, he can foresee what they will be, and consequently cannot have the smallest conceivable motive for exposing them to probation.

I foresee that it may not be deemed expedient to take any notice of this letter; but whatever may be the result in this way, does not interfere with the propriety of my putting it in your power to avail yourselves of my offer; since I have a sanction from a higher source, the spirit of the immortal Washington, the proofs of whose communion with me I am prepared to submit to any respectable inquirers.

I am aware that this language would, a few years ago, have made me attach the idea of insanity to the author; but this cannot, nevertheless, in the slightest degree, be deducible from it now, from the notorious fact that the same monomania is never entertained by any two persons, and in my hallucination, if it be such, there are a multitude of participators. That is to say, there are a multitude of persons of every grade who believe that they have communicated with their spirit friends, as I have with mine; and who, like me, have believed themselves to have held communion with the spirits of some of the most distinguished men who have departed this life. A faith in the miracles of the New Testament may as well be adduced as insanity as belief in spiritual manifestations under these circumstances.

The fact that manifestations have been made and truthfully described has been admitted by the Catholic Church, but are ascribed to Satanic agency.

Let the doctrines of Spiritualism, and those of the church in question, be compared, in order to determine which owes most to Satan.

The existence of a devil being admitted, was there ever a more fertile source of diabolical intolerance than the idea that a peculiar belief being necessary to save men’s souls from hell fire, any temporal evil to which mortals might be subjected to coerce belief, would be as justifiable as the forcible extirpation of an incipient cancer from the body of a child unwilling to submit to the operation? If ever there was a devil’s agency, it may be seen in the auto-da-fé, the Inquisition, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day.

Of the same devilish character was the execution of Servetus by Calvin, or the persecution of the Quakers and witches by the Puritans.

Respectfully, your well-wisher, ROBERT HARE.

A LETTER FROM DR. HARE.

Addressed to the President of the Association for the Advancement of Science, at their meeting, August 18, 1855.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

Having addressed the subjoined letter to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the standing committee resolved that the subject did not fall sufficiently within the objects of the Association to allow even of its being read to the meeting. In the instance of my letter to the Episcopal clergy, it was stated that its acknowledgment by them was not expected; and after this impression was verified, I admitted that, in their not replying, the interest of the church was best consulted. In the present case I admit that the harmony of the Association was perhaps best consulted in not recognising that the objects of the Association involved the duty of allowing certain facts to be stated before it, which are at war with the received doctrines of science, no less than with those of revelation.

During the Dark Ages, the so-called word of God (but really the words of ignorant propagandists) had taken such hold of the proper domain of science, that it was heresy to assert the rotundity of this planet, or that the sun did not revolve about it diurnally. But at this time science has established itself upon the domain claimed for religious truth, so that between the positive science of the atheist Comte and the dogmatic opinions of the orthodox savan, there is no room for the germ of Spiritualism to shoot up.

It seems to me that, in due courtesy and liberality, the standing committee might have had my letter read to the meeting, and have let the members judge whether it should be acknowledged. But I place it on record in this volume, and leave the propriety of their having neglected to acknowledge it to be estimated hereafter in this world, as it has already been in the world of spirits, as respects its influence on the estimation of the parties.

I am aware, however, that every man in society is more or less a peon, and that there is no small analogy between the situation of many holding worldly pre-eminence and that of the poor apothecary of Shakspeare. Conscience and reason are ever under the control of expediency. Those who live in society must be governed by the hearts and heads of others as well as their own: unless they are quite sure that the cause of truth will suffer by their silence, they should not speak to give others umbrage. I always considered it my duty not to do any thing which would injure the institution of which I was a member for nearly thirty years. Doubtless, the sachems of the Association did what they thought best, as probably I should have done, had I been situated as they were, and holding their opinions.

In the letter as actually sent to the Association, I introduced the arguments founded on Dr. Bell’s observations, (111, 287, 864,) also the facts and reasoning submitted in the Supplemental Preface. I shall, of course, leave the reader to recur to those passages, and introduce here only the other portions of my letter:

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE:

Dear Sir: Being engaged in putting a work to press, I am sorry to be unable to be present at the meeting of the Association on the 15th inst.

When I was at the last meeting, I stated an experiment made with the greatest care and precision, which proved the existence of a power independent of any possible or conceivable mortal agency; and I had on that occasion an opportunity of experiencing the fate of the Dutch ambassador who first made the king of Ava acquainted with the fact that bodies of water can be frozen so as to enable people to walk on a solidified aqueous surface. It was a disease of the mind in either case.

But let no one apply to his soul the self-complacent unction that it was my hallucination, not bigoted ignorance, that originated that diagnosis. Since that time, the fact of movements being made intelligibly, without any perceptible or assignable mortal aid, has been verified hundreds of times by others; while under my own intuition it has been reiterated many times, the experiment which I adduced having been repeated with every imaginable precaution and instructive variation. * * * * *

About two years have elapsed, since I erroneously sanctioned Farraday’s explanation of the manifestations, in ascribing them to involuntary muscular action. This arose from my being, no less than that philosopher, so utterly incredulous and intolerant of any idea of spiritual agency in any of the phenomena of nature, excepting those which I ascribed to God, that I did not take the possible agency of spirits into view; but having been obliged to admit the facts conceded by Dr. Bell, (287,) and having received interesting and intellectual communications of which he has not been informed, I cannot, with him, stop half-way: nor could he, were he to have the interesting communications with his spirit friends which I have had with mine.

There has been a time when religion repressed science; and it would seem that at the present era science is to revenge itself by repressing religious truth, by sanctioning indirectly the alleged manifestations of antiquity, while deriding those of the present time; believing on miracles told by no one knows who, yet denying the allegations of eye-witnesses known to be truthful; while straining at spiritual gnats, swallowing scriptural camels.

With high esteem, your well-wisher, ROBERT HARE.

FARRADAY’S SPECULATION.

Speculation touching Electric Conduction and the nature of Matter. By Farraday.

Having expressed my objections to Farraday’s inferences respecting matter, &c., I feel that justice requires that I should submit the article which drew forth my strictures. At this time, when electricity and matter are scrutinized with a view to understand the analogous, but different, entities of the spirit world, the ideas of an experimental investigator so eminently successful, must be of interest to readers:

Light and electricity are two great and searching investigators of the molecular structure of bodies, and it was, while considering the probable nature of conduction and insulation in bodies not decomposable by the electricity to which they were subject, and the relation of electricity to space contemplated as void of that which, by the anatomist, is called matter, that considerations, something like those which follow, were presented to my mind.

If the view of the constitution of matter, already referred to, be assumed to be correct, and I may be allowed to speak of the particles of matter and of the space between them (in water, or in the vapour of water, for instance) as two different things, then space must be taken as the only continuous part, for the particles are considered as separated by space from each other. Space will permeate all masses of matter in every direction like a net, except that, in place of meshes, it will form cells, isolating each atom from its neighbours, and itself only being continuous.

Then take the case of a piece of shellac, a non-conductor, and it would appear at once, from such a view of its constitution, that space is an insulator, for if it were a conductor, the shellac could not insulate, whatever might be the relation as to conducting power of its material atoms; the space would be like a fine metallic web penetrating it in every direction, just as we may imagine of a heap of siliceous sand having all its pores filled with water, or as we may consider of a stick of black wax, which, though it contains an infinity of particles of conducting charcoal diffused through every part of it, cannot conduct, because a non-conducting body (a resin) intervenes and separates them one from another like the supposed space in the lac.

Next take the case of a metal, platinum or potassium, constituted, according to the atomic theory, in the same manner. The metal is a conductor; but how can this be, except space be a conductor, for it is the only continuous part of the metal, and the atoms not only do not touch, (by the theory,) but, as we shall see presently, must be assumed to be a considerable way apart. Space, therefore, must be a conductor, or else the metals could not conduct, but would be in the situation of the black sealing-wax referred to a little while ago.

But if space be a conductor, how then can shellac, sulphur, &c. insulate? for space permeates them in every direction. Or, if space be an insulator, how can a metal or other similar body conduct?

It would seem, therefore, that in accepting the ordinary atomic theory, space may be proved to be a non-conductor in non-conducting bodies, and a conductor in conducting bodies; but the reasoning ends in this, a subversion of that theory altogether, for if space be an insulator, it cannot exist in conducting bodies, and if it be a conductor, it cannot exist in insulating bodies. Any ground of reasoning which tends to such conclusions must in itself be false.

In connection with such conclusions, we may consider shortly what are the probabilities that present themselves to the mind, if the extension of the atomic theory which chemists have imagined be applied in conjunction with the conducting powers of metals. If the specific gravity of the metals be divided by the atomic numbers, it gives us the number of atoms, upon the hypothesis, in equal bulks of the metals. In the following table the first column of figures expresses nearly the numbers of atoms in, and the second column of figures the conducting power of, equal volumes of the metals named:

Atoms. Conducting power. 1·00 gold 6·00 1·00 silver 4·66 1·12 lead 0·52 1·30 tin 1·00 2·20 platinum 1·04 2·27 zinc 1·80 2·87 copper 6·33 2·90 iron 1·00

So here iron, which contains the greatest number of atoms in a given bulk, is the worst conductor excepting one. Gold, which contains the fewest, is nearly the best conductor; not that these conditions are in inverse proportions, for copper, which contains nearly as many atoms as iron, conducts better still than gold, and with above six times the power of iron. Lead, which contains more atoms than gold, has only about one-twelfth of its conducting power; lead, which is much heavier than tin and much lighter than platina, has only half the conducting power of either of these metals. And all this happens among substances which we are bound to consider at present as elementary or simple. Whichever way we consider the particles of matter and the space between them, and examine the assumed constitution of matter by this table, the results are full of perplexity.

Now let us take the case of potassium, a compact metallic substance with excellent conducting powers—its oxide or hydrate a non-conductor; it will supply us with some facts having very important bearings on the assumed atomic construction of matter.

When potassium is oxidized, an atom of it combines with an atom of oxygen to form an atom of potassa, and an atom of potassa combines with an atom of water, consisting of two atoms of oxygen and hydrogen, to form an atom of hydrate of potassa, so that an atom of hydrate of potassa contains four elementary atoms. The specific gravity of potassium is 0·865, and its atomic weight 40·; the specific gravity of cast hydrate of potassa, in such a state of purity as I could obtain it, I found to be nearly 2; its atomic weight, 57. From these, which may be taken as facts, the following strange conclusions flow: A piece of potassium contains less potassium than an equal piece of the potash formed by it and oxygen. We may cast into potassium oxygen, atom for atom, and then again both oxygen and hydrogen in a twofold number of atoms, and with all these additions the matter shall become less and less, until it is not two-thirds of its original volume. If a given bulk of potassium contains 45 atoms, the same bulk of hydrate of potassa contains 70 atoms nearly of the metal potassium, and, besides that, 210 atoms more of oxygen and hydrogen. In dealing with assumptions, I must assume a little more for the sake of making any kind of statement; let me therefore assume that in the hydrate of potassa the atoms are all of one size and nearly touching each other, and that in a cubic inch of that substance there are 2800 elementary atoms of potassium, oxygen, and hydrogen; take 2100 atoms of oxygen and hydrogen, and the 700 atoms of potassium remaining will swell into more than a cubic inch and a half; and if we diminish the number until only those containable in a cubic inch remain, we shall have 430, or thereabout. So a space which can contain 2800 atoms, and among them 700 of potassium itself, is found to be entirely filled by 430 atoms of potassium, as they exist in the ordinary state of that metal. Surely, then, under the suppositions of the atomic theory, the atoms of potassium must be very far apart in the metal, i. e. there must be much more of space than of matter in that body; yet it is an excellent conductor; and so space must be a conductor, but then what becomes of shellac, sulphur, and all the insulators? for space must also, by the theory, exist in them.

Again, the volume which will contain 430 atoms of potassium, and nothing else while in the state of metal, will, when that potassium is converted into nitre, contain very nearly the same number of atoms of potassium, i. e. 416, and also then seven times as many, or 2912 atoms, of nitrogen and oxygen beside. In carbonate of potassa, the space which will contain only the 430 atoms of potassium as metal, being entirely filled by it, will, after the conversion, contain 256 atoms more of potassium, making 686 atoms of that metal, and in addition 2744 atoms of oxygen and carbon.

These and similar considerations might be extended through compounds of sodium and other bodies, with results equally striking, and indeed more so, when the relations of one substance, as oxygen and sulphur, with different bodies are brought into comparison.

I am not ignorant that the mind is most powerfully drawn by the phenomena of crystallization, chemistry, and physics generally to the acknowledgment of centres of force. I feel myself constrained, for the present, hypothetically to admit them, and cannot do without them; but I feel great difficulty in the conception of atoms of matter which in solids, fluids, and vapours are supposed to be more or less apart from each other, with intervening space not occupied by atoms, and perceive great contradictions in the conclusions which flow from such a view.

If we must assume at all, as indeed in a branch of knowledge like the present we can hardly help it, then the safest course appears to be to assume as little as possible; and in that respect the atoms of Boscovich appear to me to have a great advantage over the more usual notion. His atoms, if I understand aright, are mere centres of forces or powers, not particles of matter in which the powers themselves reside. If in the ordinary view of atoms, we call the particle of matter away from the powers a, and the system of powers or forces in and around it m, then in Boscovich’s theory a disappears, and is a mere mathematical point, while in the usual notion it is a little, unchangeable, impenetrable piece of matter, and m is an atmosphere of force grouped around it.

In many of the hypothetical uses made of atoms, as in crystallography, chemistry, magnetism, &c., this difference in the assumption makes little or no alteration in the results; but in other cases, as of electric conductors, the nature of light, the manner in which bodies combine to produce compounds, the effect of forces, as heat or electricity, upon matter, the difference will be very great.

Thus, referring back to potassium, in which as a metal the atoms must, as we have seen, be, according to the usual view, very far apart from each other, how can we for a moment imagine that its conducting property belongs to it any otherwise than as a consequence of the properties of the space, or, as I have called it above, the m? So also its other properties in regard to light, or magnetism, or solidity, or hardness, or specific gravity, must belong to it, in consequence of the properties or forces of the m, not those of the a, which, without the forces, is conceived of as having no powers. But then, surely, the m is the matter of the potassium, for where is there the least ground (except in a gratuitous assumption) for imagining a difference in kind between the nature of that space midway between the centres of two contiguous atoms, and any other spot between these centres? A difference in degree or even in the nature of the power consistent with the laws of continuity I can admit, but the difference between a supposed little hard particle and the powers around it, I cannot imagine.

To my mind, therefore, the a or nucleus vanishes, and the substance consist of the powers or m; and indeed what notion can we form of the nucleus independent of its powers? All our perception and knowledge of the atom, and even our fancy, is limited to ideas of its powers; what thought remains on which to hang the imagination of an a independent of the acknowledged forces? As mind just entering on the subject may consider it difficult to think of the powers of matter independent of a separate something to be called the matter, but it is certainly far more difficult, and indeed impossible to think of or imagine that matter independent of the powers. Now, the powers we know and recognise in every phenomena of the creation, the abstract matter in one; why, then, assume the existence of that of which we are ignorant, which we cannot conceive, and for which there is no philosophical necessity?

Before concluding these speculations, I will refer to a few of the important differences between the assumption of atoms consisting merely of centres of force like those of Boscovich, and that other assumption of molecules of something specially material, having powers attached in and around them.

With the latter atoms a mass of matter consists of atoms and intervening space; with the former atoms matter is everywhere present, and there is no intervening space unoccupied by it. In gases the atoms touch each other just as truly as in solids. In this respect the atoms of water touch each other, whether that substance be in the form of ice, water, or steam; no mere intervening space is present. Doubtless, the centres of force vary in their distance one from another, but that which is truly the matter of one atom touches the matter of its neighbours.

Hence matter will be continuous throughout, and in considering we have not to suppose a distinction between its atoms and any intervening space. The powers around the centres give these centres the properties of atoms of matter; and these powers again, when many centres by their conjoint forces are grouped into a mass, give to every part of that mass the properties of matter. In such a view all the contradiction resulting from the consideration of electric insulation and conduction disappears.

The atoms may be conceived of as highly elastic, instead of being supposed excessively hard and unalterable in form; the mere compression of a bladder of air between the hands can alter their size a little, and the experiments of Cagniard la Tour carry on this change in size until the difference in bulk at one time and another may be made several hundred times. Such is also the case when a solid or a fluid body is converted into vapour.

With regard also to the shape of the atoms, and, according to the ordinary assumption, its definite and unalterable character, another view must now be taken of it. An atom by itself might be conceived of as spherical or spheroidal, or where many were touching in all directions, the form might be thought of as a dodecahedron, for any one would be surrounded by and bear against twelve others, on different sides. But if an atom be conceived to be a centre of power, that which is ordinarily referred to under the term shape, would now be referred to the disposition and relative intensity of the forces. The power arranged in and around a centre might be uniform in arrangement and intensity in every direction outward from that centre, and then a section of equal intensity of force through the radii would be a sphere; or the law of decrease of force from the centre outward might vary in different directions, and then the section of equal intensity might be an oblate or oblong spheroid, or have other forms; or the forces might be disposed so as to make the atom polar; or they might circulate around it equatorially or otherwise, after the manner of imagined magnetic atoms. In fact, nothing can be supposed of the disposition of forces in or about a solid nucleus of matter, which cannot be equally conceived with respect to a centre.

In the view of matter now sustained as the lesser assumption, matter and the atoms of matter would be mutually penetrable. As regards the mutual penetrability of matter, one would think that the facts respecting potassium and its compounds, already described, would be enough to prove that point to a mind which accepts a fact for a fact, and is not obstructed in its judgment by preconceived notions. With respect to the mutual penetrability of the atoms, it seems to me to present in many points of view a more beautiful, yet equally probable and philosophic, idea of the constitution of bodies than the other hypotheses, especially in the case of chemical combination. If we suppose an atom of oxygen and an atom of potassium about to combine and produce potash, the hypothesis of solid, unchangeable, impenetrable atoms places these two particles side by side in a position easily, because mechanically, imagined, and not unfrequently represented; but if these two atoms be centres of power, they will mutually penetrate to the very centres, thus forming one atom or molecule, with powers either uniformly around it or arranged as the resultant of the powers of the two constituent atoms; and the manner in which two or many centres of force may in this way combine, and afterward, under the dominion of stronger forces, separate, may in some degree be illustrated by the beautiful case of the conjunction of two sea waves of different velocities into one, their perfect union for a time, and final separation into the constituent waves, considered, I think, at the meeting of the British Association at Liverpool. It does not, of course, follow from this view that the centres shall always coincide; that will depend upon the relative disposition of the powers of each atom.

The view now stated of the constitution of matter would seem to involve necessarily the conclusion that matter fills all space, or, at least, all space to which gravitation extends, (including the sun and its system,) for gravitation is a property of matter dependent on a certain force, and it is this force which constitutes the matter. In that view matter is not merely mutually penetrable, but each atom extends, so to say, throughout the whole of the solar system, yet always retaining its own centre of force. This, at first sight, seems to fall in very harmoniously with Massotti’s mathematical investigations and reference of the phenomena of electricity, cohesion, gravitation, &c. to one force in matter, and also again with the old adage “matter cannot act where it is not.” But it is no part of my intention to enter into such considerations as these, or what the bearings of this hypothesis would be on the theory of light and the supposed ether. My desire has been rather to bring certain facts from electrical conduction and chemical combination to bear strongly upon our views regarding the nature of atoms and matter, and so to assist in distinguishing in natural philosophy our real knowledge—i. e. the knowledge of facts and laws—from that, which, though it has the form of knowledge, may, from its including so much that is mere assumption, be the very reverse.

It is to be regretted that the memoir of the Rev. Mr. Whewell could not be quoted, being long and obscure. His opinions, it is conceived, have been stated fairly, (1796.)

Motives for republishing my Memoirs on Electrical Theory.

The principal motive, without which the other motives would not have prevailed, is, that having had an interview with the spirit of Franklin expressly to have his advice, it was given decidedly in favour of publication.

There is no door in the temple of science which is so easy of access as that which leads to the department of electricity. The illustrations usually given at a popular lecture may, at the same time, amuse an infant, instruct a student, and yet perplex a profound philosopher. As associated with the phenomena of thunder and lightning, at one time attributed to the bolt of omnipotent Jove, no consequences of scientific research are so awful and sublime: coupled with the magnetic electric telegraph, no other result so miraculous. While vis inertiæ would keep all nature in statu quo, whether at rest, or like our planet in motion with a velocity fifty times as great as that of a cannon ball: while gravitation tends like the clock weight to produce a definite action and, per se, never to act again: electricity, with a protean diversity of power, appears to be the great instrument of all those changes by which the quiescent influence of the properties above mentioned, is modified in the mundane sphere of chemistry and of life.

Every tyro is aware of the wonderful property imparted to electrics by friction—to the tourmaline by heat; and that the same process, on a large scale, will produce sparks, ignition, combustion, deflagration, and destroy animal life by an instantaneous shock. It is notorious that these wonderful powers may all be imparted to a naked pane of glass, while the charge thus imparted is really only two opposite and equal affections, capable of neutralizing each other by due communication. Known also is it, that properties, to a certain extent similar, may be found in a pile of pairs of heterogeneous metals, with the additional power of electrolysis, or, in other words, of resolving chemical compounds into their ingredients, (1376.) It is well known that, by these means, water, long and almost religiously considered as one of the four elements of the universe, can be decomposed into two kinds of air; that the earths and alkalies have been resolved into metals and oxygen; and that there is scarcely any chemical compound consisting of two elements, which may not, when in aqueous solution or in fusion by heat, be directly or indirectly decomposed by electrolysis, as explained in the note to page 384.

These multifarious feats of electricity have caused it to be contemplated as the source of every thing mysterious in nature. It is not surprising, therefore, that those who, through the accessibility of electricity, had become partially acquainted with electrical phenomena, should view it as the source of spiritual manifestations; while those who have a more extensive knowledge of the nature and extent of electrical jurisdiction should perceive at once that the phenomena in question do not fall within its sphere.

After the discovery, by Oersted, of the previously unsuspected reaction between galvanized wire and a magnetic needle, those who had resorted to either one or two fluids to explain electrical phenomena, found themselves completely at fault. Yet the language originated by Franklin has been still employed conventionally. This, though not misleading adepts, introduces confusion in the minds of those who have merely reached the ante-chamber of the electrical department.

Under these circumstances, I deem it expedient to republish the exposition of electrical theory which I first laid before the scientific world in 1848.

I hope that those who endeavour to refer spiritual manifestations or animal magnetism to electricity, in any of its modifications, will study this exposition of my views.

Though, as already stated, there appears to be, for the spirit world, appropriate elements, distinct from those of this mundane world, there is, nevertheless, a correspondence. We mortals can best prepare ourselves to understand the elements of that world by understanding our own. From an idea of our light and our vital air, we may by analogy conceive of theirs as a preliminary to any further knowledge.

The following theory has been submitted to the spirit of Franklin, who fully approved of it, and fully admitted the validity of the reasons assigned by me for substituting this new exposition of electricity for that which goes under his celebrated name.

Objections to the Theories severally of Franklin, Dufay, and Ampere, with an effort to explain Electrical Phenomena, by Statical or Undulatory Polarization.[58] By Robert Hare, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania.

1. It appears, from the experiments of Wheatstone, that the discharge of a Leyden jar, by means of a copper wire, takes place within a time so small, that were the transfer of a fluid from the positive to the negative surface requisite for its accomplishment, a current having a velocity exceeding two hundred thousand miles in a second would be necessary.

2. The only causes for the velocity of an electric current, according to Franklin, are the repulsion between the particles of the electric fluid of which it has been assumed to consist, and the attraction between those particles and other matter. These forces are alleged to concur in distributing the supposed fluid throughout space, whether otherwise void, or partially occupied by conducting solids or fluids. Hence, when between two or more spaces, surfaces, or conducting masses, there is an unequal distribution of the electric fluid, the equilibrium is restored whenever a communication is opened by means of a sufficiently conducting medium. Agreeably to this view of the subject, there seems to be a resemblance between the supposed effort of the electrical fluid to attain a state of equable diffusion, and that which would exist in the case of a gas confined in adjoining receivers, so as to be more dense within one than within the other; for, however the subtilty of the supposed electric fluid may exceed that of any gas, there seems to be an analogy as respects the processes of diffusion which must prevail. But on opening a communication between cavities in which any aeriform fluid exists, in different degrees of condensation, the density must lessen in one cavity and augment in the other, with a rapidity which must diminish gradually, and become evanescent with the difference of pressure by which it is induced. Far from taking place in an analogous manner, electrical discharges are effected with an extreme suddenness, the whole of the redundancy being discharged at once, in a mode more like the flight of a bullet, projected with infinite velocity, than that of a jet gradually varying in celerity from a maximum to a minimum.

3. So far, in fact, is an electrical discharge from displaying the features which belong to the reaction of a condensed elastic fluid, that agreeably to the observations of our distinguished countryman Henry, the result is more like the vibrations of a spring, which, in striving to regain its normal position, goes beyond it. The first discharge between the surfaces of a Leyden jar is not productive of a perfect equilibrium. The transfer of different polarities goes beyond the point of reciprocal neutralization, producing a state, to a small extent, the opposite of that at first existing; and hence a refluent discharge ensues, opposite in direction to the primary one. But even this does not produce an equilibrium, so that a third effort is made. These alternate discharges were detected by means of the magnetism imparted to needles exposed in coils of copper wire.[59]

4. Supposing one or more rows of electrical particles, forming such a filament of electricity as must occupy the space within a wire of great length, to be made the medium of discharge to a Leyden jar; agreeably to the hypothesis of one fluid, the electrical filament must be attracted at one end of the wire and repelled at the other, as soon as its terminations are brought into due communication with the coatings of the jar. Yet the influence of the oppositely-charged surfaces of the jar cannot be conceived to extend to those portions of the electricity which are remote from the points of contact, until they be reached by a succession of vibrations. Hence, it is inconceivable that every particle in the filament of electric matter can be made at the same time to move, so as to constitute a current having the necessary velocity and volume to transfer, instantaneously, the electricity requisite to constitute a charge. Even the transmission of the impulses, in such an infinitesimal of time, seems to be inconceivable.

5. In reply to these objections, it has been urged by the Franklinians that a conductor being replete with electricity, as soon as this fluid should be removed at one end, it ought to move at the other. This might be true of a fluid if incompressible, but could not hold good were it elastic. A bell wire moves at both ends when pulled only at one; but this would not ensue were a cord of gum-elastic substituted for the wire.

6. But if the flow of one fluid, with the enormous velocity inferred, be difficult to conceive, still more must it be incomprehensible that two fluids can rush with similar celerity, from each surface of the jar, in opposite directions, through the narrow channel afforded by a wire; especially as they are alleged to exercise an intense affinity; so that it is only by a series of decompositions and recompositions that they can pass each other.

7. That agreeably to the theory of Dufay, equivalent portions of the resinous and vitreous fluids must exchange places during an electrical discharge, will appear evident from the following considerations: One surface being redundant with vitreous and deficient commensurately of resinous electricity, and the other redundant with the resinous and deficient of the vitreous fluid, it is inevitable that, to restore the equilibrium, there must be a simultaneous transfer of each redundancy to the surfaces wherein there is a deficiency of it to be supplied. If, after decomposing a large portion of the neutral compound previously existing on the surface of the jar, and transferring the ingredients severally in opposite directions, so as to cause each to exist in excess upon the surface assigned to it, should the redundancies, thus originated, be neutralized by meeting in the discharging rod, neither surface could recover its quota of the electrical ingredient of which it must have been deprived agreeably to the premises.

8. This calls to mind the fact that no evidence has been adduced of the existence of any tertium quid, arising from the union of the supposed electricities, founded on any property displayed by their resulting combination in the neutral state. It must, if it exist, constitute an anomalous matter, destitute of all properties, and of the existence of which we have no evidence, besides that founded on the appearance and disappearance of its alleged ingredients.

9. But however plausibly the discharges consequent to making a conducting communication from one electrified mass or surface to another mass or surface in an opposite state, may be ascribed to accumulations either of one or of two fluids, neither, according to one theory nor the other, is it possible to account satisfactorily for the stationary magnetism with which steel may be endowed, nor the transitory magnetism, or power of dynamic induction, acquired by wires transmitting galvanic discharges.

10. For the most plausible effort which has been made for the purpose of reconciling the phenomena of electro-magnetism with the theory of two fluids, or with that of one fluid so far as these theories are convertible, we are indebted to Ampere.

11. According to the hypothesis advanced by this eminent philosopher, the difference between a magnetized and an electrified body is not attributable to any diversity in the imponderable matter to which their properties are respectively due, but to a difference in the actual state or distribution of that matter. Statical polarity is the consequence of the unequal distribution of the two electric fluids whose existence he assumes; while magnetical polarity is the consequence merely of the motion of those fluids, which, in magnets, are supposed to gyrate in opposite directions about each particle of the mass. These gyrations are conceived to take place only in planes at right angles to the axis of the magnet; so that, in a straight magnet, the planes of the orbits must be parallel to each other.[60]

12. The aggregate effect of all the minute vortices of the electrical fluids, in any one plane, bounded by the lateral surfaces of the magnet, is equivalent externally to one vortex, since, in either case, every electric particle on that surface will so move as to describe tangents to a circle drawn about the axis of the magnet. When the electrical vortices of the pole of one magnet conflict in their direction with those of another, as when similar magnetic poles are approximated, repulsion ensues; but if the vortices are coincident in direction, as when dissimilar poles are near, attraction takes place. When a current through a galvanized wire[61] concurs in direction with the magnetic vortices, as above described, attraction ensues; repulsion resulting when it does not so concur. Hence, the magnet, if movable, will strive to assume a position in which its electrical currents will not conflict with those of the wire on one side more than on the other; also the wire, if movable, will strive so to arrange itself so as to produce the same result, which can arrive only when the needle is at right angles to the wire, and its sides consequently equidistant therefrom.

13. Electric currents will produce magnetic vortices, and, reciprocally, magnetic vortices will produce electric currents. Hence the magnetism imparted to iron by galvanic spirals, and the Farradian currents produced by magnetized iron within spirals not galvanized.

14. Ampere’s theory has, in a high degree, the usual fault of substituting one mystery for another; but, on the other hand, it has, in an equally high extent, the only merit to which any theory can make an indisputable claim: I mean that of associating facts so as to make them more easy to comprehend and to remember, enabling us, by analogy, to foresee results, and thus affording a clue in our investigations. Evidently, the author of this theory was guided by it in his highly interesting and instructive contrivances; and Professor Henry ascribes his success in improving the electro-magnet to the theoretic clue which he had received from Ampere.

15. Nevertheless, the postulates on which this Amperean hypothesis is founded appear to me unreasonable. They require us to concede that about every atom of a permanent magnet a process is going on analogous to that generally admitted to exist in a galvanic circuit, where two fluids pass each other in a common channel by a series of decompositions and recompositions, (7.) In the galvanic circuit this process is sustained by chemical reaction; but without any coenduring cause, how is it to be sustained permanently in a magnet? Is it reasonable to assume that the heterogeneous constituents of an imaginary tertium quid are perpetually separating only to reunite? (8.)[62]

16. In cases of complex affinity, where four particles, A B C D are united into two compounds A B, C D, it is easy to conceive that, in obedience to a stronger affinity, A shall combine with C, and B with D: but, without any extraneous agency, wherefore, in any one compound, should a particle A quit a particle B, in order to unite with another particle of the same kind; or wherefore should any one B quit one A, in order to combine with another A?

17. That such a process should take place in consequence of the inductive agency of a similar process already established in a magnet or galvanized wire were difficult to believe; but it would seem utterly incredible that the most transient influence of such induction should be productive of such permanent electrolytic gyration as has been above specified. Moreover, it is inconceivable that the particles of any matter should, as required by this hypothesis, merely by being put into motion, acquire a power of reciprocal repulsion or attraction of which it were otherwise destitute.

18. The vortices being assumed to take place about each atom, cannot severally occupy an area of greater diameter than can exist between the centres of any two atoms. Of course, the gyratory force exercised about the surface of a magnet by the aggregate movements of the vortices cannot extend beyond the surface more than half the diameter of one of the minute areas of gyration alluded to. Wherefore, then, do these gyrations, when similar in direction, from their concurrence approach each other; when dissimilar in direction, from contrariety move away, even when situated comparatively at a great distance?

19. I should consider Ampere’s theory as more reasonable were it founded upon the existence of one fluid; since, in that case, vortices might be imagined without the necessity of supposing an endless and unaccountable separation and reunion of two sets of particles; not only devoid of any property capable of sustaining their alleged opposite gyrations, but actually endowed with an intense reciprocal attraction which must render such gyrations impossible. But even if grounded on the idea of one fluid, this celebrated hypothesis does not seem to me to account for the phenomena which it was intended to explain. If distinct portions of any fluid do not attract or repel each other when at rest, wherefore should they either attract or repel each other when in motion? Evidently mere motion can generate neither attraction nor repulsion. Bodies projected horizontally gravitate with the same intensity, and consequently, in any given time, fall to the earth through the same perpendicular distance, whether moving with the celerity of a cannon ball, or undergoing no impulse excepting those arising from their own unresisted weights.

20. The objections which are thus shown to be applicable in the case of liquids, of which the neighbouring particles are destitute of the reaction requisite to produce the phenomena requiring explanation, must operate with still greater force where ethereal fluids are in question, of which the properties are positively irreconcilable with the phenomena. According both to Franklin and Dufay, bodies, when similarly electrified, should repel each other; yet in point of fact, collateral wires, when subjected to similar voltaic discharges, and of course similarly electrified, become reciprocally attractive, while such wires, when dissimilarly electrified by currents which are not analogous, become reciprocally repulsive.

21. Agreeably to Ampere, an iron bar, situated within a coil of wire subjected to a galvanic current, is magnetized, because the current in the wire is productive of an electrical whirlpool about every particle of the metal. When the iron is soft, the magnetism, and of course the gyrations of which its magnetism consists by the premises, cease for the most part as soon as the circuit through the coil is broken; but when the iron is in the more rigid state of hardened steel, the gyrations continue for any length of time after the exciting cause has ceased.

22. This theory does not explain wherefore the hardening of the steel should cause the gyration to be more difficult to induce, yet more lasting when its induction is effected. Evidently the metallic particles must take some part in the process; since it is dependent for its existence and endurance upon their nature and their state. Yet no function is assigned to these particles. In fact, it is inconceivable either that they can participate in, or contribute to, the supposed gyration.

23. The electrical fluid in an iron bar cannot form a vortex about each particle, all the vortices turning in one direction, without a conflict between those which are contiguous. In order not to conflict with each other, the alternate vortices would have to turn in different directions, like interlocking cog-wheels in machinery. But in that case, if magnetism be due to currents, the magneto-inductive influence of one set would neutralize that of the other. Again, how can a current, excited by a battery in one circuitous conductor, cause, by dynamic induction, a current in the opposite direction, through another conductor parallel to the first, but insulated therefrom? How can a current of quantity in a ribbon coil[63] give rise to one of intensity in a coil of fine wire, rushing of course with a velocity commensurate with the intensity thus imparted?

24. From the preceding considerations, and others which will be stated, it follows that it has been erroneously inferred that the only difference between galvanic and frictional electricity is dependent on quantity and intensity. It must be evident that there is a diversity in the nature of these affections of matter, sufficient to create a line of demarcation between them.

25. Having stated my objections to the electrical theories heretofore advanced, it may be proper that I should suggest any hypothetical views which may appear to me of a character to amend or to supersede those to which I have objected. But however I may have been emboldened to point out defects which have appeared to me to be inherent in the theories heretofore accredited, I am far from presuming to devise any substitute which will be unobjectionable. I am fully aware that there is an obscurity as respects the nature and mutual influence of chemical affinity, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and vitality, which science can only to a minute extent dispel.

26. The hypothesis which I now deem preferable is so much indebted to the researches and suggestions of Farraday and others, that, were it true, I could claim for myself but a small share of the merit of its origination. That sagacious electrician employs the following language: “In the long-continued course of experimental inquiry, in which I have been engaged, this general result has pressed upon me constantly—namely, the necessity of admitting two forces or directions of force, combined with the impossibility of separating these two forces or electricities from each other.” (Experimental Researches, 1163.)[64]

27. Subsequently, (1244,) after citing another proof of the inseparability of the two electric forces, he alleges it to be “another argument in favour of the view that induction and its concomitant phenomena depend upon a polarity of the particles of matter!”

Supposed grounds for a Theory.

28. The grounds upon which I venture to advance a theory are as follows:

The existence of two heterogeneous polar forces acting in opposite directions, and necessarily connate and coexistent; yet capable of reciprocal neutralization, agreeably to the authority of Farraday and others: the polarity of matter in general, as displayed during the crystallization and vegetation of salts: also as made evident by Farraday’s late researches, and the experiments and observations of Hunt: the very small proportion of the space in solids, as in the instance of potassium and other metals, which are apparently occupied by the ponderable atoms; while, agreeably to the researches and speculations of Farraday, (rightly interpreted,) the residual space must be replete with imponderable matter: the experiments and inferences of Davy and others, tending to sanction the idea that an imponderable ethereal fluid must pervade the creation: the perfect identity of the polarizing effects, transiently created in a wire by subjection to a galvanic discharge, with those produced by the permanent polarizing power of a steel magnet: the utter heterogeneousness of the powers of galvanic and frictional electricity, as respects ability to produce sparks before contact, and likewise of the polarities which they respectively produce: and superficiality of electricity proper during discharge as well as when existing upon insulated surfaces, as demonstrated by atmospheric electricity when conveyed by telegraphic wires, agreeably to Henry; the sounds observed severally by Page, Henry, and Mairran, as being consequent to making and breaking a galvanic circuit through a conductor, or magnetizing or demagnetizing by means of surrounding galvanized coils.

Proofs of the existence of an enormous quantity of Imponderable Matter in Metals.

29. It has been most sagaciously pointed out by Farraday that four hundred and thirty atoms, which form a cube of potassium in the metallic state, must occupy nearly six times as much space as the same number of similar atoms fill, when existing in a cube of hydrated oxide of potassium of the same size; which, beside seven hundred metallic atoms, must hold seven hundred atoms of hydrogen and fourteen hundred of oxygen—in all two thousand eight hundred atoms; whence it follows that, in the metallic cube, there must be room for six times as many atoms as it actually holds.

30. With all due deference, I am of opinion that this distinguished philosopher has not been consistent in assuming that, agreeably to the Newtonian idea of ponderable atoms, the space in potassium not replete with metal must be vacant; since, according to facts established by his researches, or resulting therefrom, an enormous quantity both of the causes of heat and of electricity exists in metals. Moreover, agreeably to his recent speculations, those causes must consist of material, independent, imponderable matter, occupying the whole of the space in which their efficacy is perceptible. To the evolution of the imponderable matter thus associated, the incandescence of a globule of potassium on contact with water, may be ascribed, since it is the consequence of the displacement of such matter by the elements of water, which, in replacing it, converts the metal into the hydrated oxide called caustic potash.

31. The existence both of the causes of electricity and heat in metals is likewise confirmed by the fact that the inductive influence of a magnet is sufficient to cause all the phenomena of heat, electrolysis, and magnetism, as exemplified by the magneto-electric machine. The existence of the cause of heat in metals is also evident from the ignition of an iron rod when hammered, or the deflagration of wire by the discharge of a Leyden battery.

32. The superiority of metals as electrical conductors may be the consequence of the pre-eminent abundance of imponderable matter entering into their composition, as above alluded to in the case of potassium.

33. Graham, in his Elements, treating of electricity, alleges that the “great discoveries of Farraday have completely altered the aspect of this department of science, and suggests that all electrical phenomena whatever involve the presence of matter.” Unless the distinguished author from whom this quotation is made intended to restrict the meaning of the word matter to ponderable matter, there was no novelty in the idea that electrical phenomena involve the presence of matter, since the hypotheses of Franklin and Dufay assume the existence of one or more imponderable material fluids. But, on the other hand, if the meaning of the word matter is only to comprise that which is ponderable, the allegation is inconsistent with the authority cited. According to the researches of Farraday, there is an enormous electrical power in metals, and, according to his speculations, such powers must be considered as imponderable material principles, pervading the space within which they prevail, independently of any ponderable atom acting as a basis for material properties; the existence of such atoms being represented as questionable.

Electrical Phenomena attributed to Stationary, or Undulatory, Polarization.

34. It having been shown that in electrical discharges there cannot reasonably be any transfer of matter, so as to justify the idea of their being effected either by one current or by two currents, the only alternative seems to be that the phenomena are due to a progressive affection of the conducting medium, analogous in its mode of propagation to waves, as in the case of liquids, or the aërial or ethereal undulations to which sound and light are ascribed. (1, 2, 3, &c.)

35. The idea intended to be conveyed by the word wave, as applied in common to the undulatory affections above mentioned, and that which is conceived to be the cause of the phenomena usually ascribed to one or more electrical currents, requires only that there should be a state of matter, which, while it may be utterly different from either of those which constitute the waves of water, light, or sound, may, nevertheless, like either, pass successively from one portion of a mass to another.

36. The affection thus designated may be reasonably distinguished from other waves, as a wave of polarization, since the wire acts, so long as subjected to the reiterated discharges of a voltaic series, as if it were converted into innumerable small magnets, situated like tangents to radii proceeding from its axis.

37. But if a polarizable medium be requisite to electrical discharges, since they pass through a space when devoid of ponderable matter, there must be some imponderable medium through which they can be effected. Hence we have reason to infer that there is an imponderable existing throughout all space, as well as within conductors, which is more or less the medium of the opposite waves essential to electric discharges. Quoting his own language, Davy’s experiments led him to consider “that space, (meaning void space,) where there is not an appreciable quantity of this matter, (meaning ponderable matter,) is capable of exhibiting electrical phenomena:” also that such phenomena “are produced by a highly subtile fluid or fluids.” Moreover, that “it may be assumed, as in the hypothesis of Hooke, Euler, and Huyghens, that an ethereal matter susceptible of electrical affections fills all space.”

38. Agreeably to the suggestions above made, all ponderable matter which is liable to be electrified internally by electrical discharges, may be considered as consisting of atoms composed of imponderable ethereo-electric particles in a state of combination with ponderable particles, analogous to that which has been supposed to exist between such particles and caloric when causing expansion, liquidity, or the aëriform state. Atoms, so constituted of ethereal and ponderable particles, may be designated as ethereo-ponderable atoms.[65]

39. A quiescent charge of frictional electricity, only affecting the superficies of any ponderable mass with which it may be associated, and having no influence upon the component ethereo-ponderable atoms severally, is not to be ascribed to redundancies or deficiencies of the ethereal matter, but to different states of polarization produced in different sets of the particles of such matter existing about the electrifiable bodies.[66] During the action of an electrical machine, these particles are polarized by the opposite polarities transiently induced in the surfaces subjected to friction; one set of particles going with the electric, the other remaining with the rubber.

40. The particles thus oppositely polarized, severally divide their appropriate polarities with other ethereal matter surrounding the conductors, and this, when insulated, is retained until a further polarization results from the same process. Thus are the ethereo-electric atmospheres respectively surrounding the positive and negative conductors oppositely polarized, and consequently charged to the degree which the machine is competent to induce. Under these circumstances, if a conducting rod be made to form between them a communication, by touching each conductor with one of its ends, the polarities of the ethereo-electric atmospheres by which they are severally surrounded propagate themselves, by a wave-like process, over and more or less through the rod, according to its nature and dimensions, so as to meet intermediately, and thus produce reciprocal neutralization.

41. When the oppositely polarizing waves, generated by friction, as above described, are by means of a conducting communication transmitted to the surface of a coated pane, the two different portions of the electro-ether there existing are severally polarized in opposite ways, one being endowed with the properties usually called vitreous, or positive, the other with those usually called resinous, or negative. In fact, the two polarized atmospheres thus created, may be conveniently designated as the “two electricities,” and alluded to in the language heretofore employed in treating of phenomena, agreeably to the hypothesis which assumes the existence of heterogeneous fluids instead of heterogeneous polarities.

42. Of course it will follow, that the oppositely polarized ethereal atmospheres thus produced, one on each surface of the electric which keeps them apart, must exercise toward each other an attraction perfectly analogous to that which has been supposed to be exercised by the imaginary heterogeneous electric fluids of Dufay. The electro-ether[67] being elastic, a condensation over each of the charged surfaces, proportionable to the attractive force must ensue; while over the surface of an electrified conductor, the similarly polarized atoms, not being attracted by those in an oppositely polarized atmosphere beneath the surface, tend, by their reciprocally repulsive reagency, to exist further apart than in a neutral state. Hence, the electro-ether, as it exists over the surface of an insulated conductor, is rendered rarer, while, as existing over the surfaces of charged panes or Leyden jars, it must be in a state of condensation.[68] And, consequently, while the space perceptibly electrified by the charge of a conductor, for equal areas and charging power, is much more extensive than the space in which the charge of a coated pane is perceptible, the striking distance being likewise much greater; yet upon any body, successively subjected to a discharge from each, the effect will be more potent when produced by means of the pane.

Ignition, Electrolysis, and Magnetism, Secondary Effects of Frictional Discharges; or, in other words, of Polarizing Electro-ethereal Waves.

43. In proportion as a wire is small in comparison with the charge which it may be made the means of neutralizing, the conducting power seems to be more dependent on the sectional area,[69] and less upon the extent of surface. The reciprocal repulsion of the similarly polarized ethereal particles must tend always to make them seek the surface, but at the same time their attraction for the ethereo-ponderable particles composing the wire has the opposite effect, and tends to derange these from their normal polar state of quiescence. Commensurate with the extent in which this state is subverted, is the resulting heat, electrolytic power, and electro-magnetic influence. The phenomena last mentioned are, however, secondary effects consequent to the participation of the ethereo-ponderable matter in the undulations resulting from the statical discharge.

44. Such effects, making allowance for the extreme minuteness of the time occupied by the process, are probably, in all cases, proportional to the degree in which the ponderable matter is effected, up to the point at which it is dissipated by deflagration; but the duration of a statical discharge being almost infinitely minute for any length of coil which can conveniently be subjected thereto, the electro-magnetic and other effects of a statical discharge are not commensurate with the intensity of the affection of the wire.

45. There is, in fact, this additional reason for the diversity between the electro-magnetic power of a statical discharge, as compared with that of the voltaic series: any wire which is of sufficient length and tenuity to display the maximum power of deflagration by the former, cannot serve for the same purpose in the case of the latter. Moreover, the form of a helix closely wound, so that the coatings may touch, which is that most favourable for the reiteration of the magnetic influence of the circuit upon an iron rod, cannot be adopted in the case of statical discharges of high intensity, since the proximity of the circumvolutions would enable the ethereal waves, notwithstanding the interposition of cotton or silk, to cross superficially from one to the other, parallel to the axis of the included iron, instead of pursuing the circuitous channel afforded by the helix with the intensity requisite to the polarization of the ponderable atoms.

The extreme Diversity, as respects striking Distance, between the direct Effects of Frictional Electricity and those directly arising from Galvanic Reaction.

46. The intensity of the excitement produced by different electrical machines is estimated to be as the relative lengths of the sparks which proceed from their prime conductors respectively. Admitting that the relative intensity were merely as the length of the spark, not as the square of that length, still there would be an infinite difference between the intensity of a voltaic series and that of electrical machines, if measured by this test. Large electrical machines, like that at the Polytechnic Institution, London, give sparks at twenty inches and more; while, agreeably to Gassiott’s experiments, a Groves’s battery of 320 pairs, in full power, would not, before contact, give a spark at any distance, however minute. It follows, that, as respects the species of intensity which is indicated by length of sparks, or striking distance, the difference between the electricity of the most powerful voltaic series and electrical machines is not to be represented by any degree of disparity; it proves that galvanism proper and electricity proper are heterogeneous.

47. It should be recollected that the intensity of galvanic action in a series of 320 pairs, excepting the loss from conduction, would be to that of one pair as 320 to 1.[70] Of course, the striking distance of a battery of one pair would be 320 times less than nothing: 320 below zero.

48. We may infer that the undulatory polarization of ethereo-ponderable matter is the primary, direct, and characteristic effect of galvanic excitement, in its more energetic modifications. Yet, that by peculiar care in securing insulation, as in the water batteries of Cross and Gassiott, ethereal undulations may be produced, with the consequent accumulation of ethereal polarity requisite to give sparks before contact, agreeably to the experiments of those ingenious philosophers.

49. Hence it may be presumed that, during intense ethereo-ponderable polarization, superficial ethereal waves may always be a secondary effect, although the conducting power of the reagents, requisite to the constitution of powerful galvanic batteries, is inconsistent with that accumulation of ethereal polarity which constitutes a statical spark-giving charge.

50. As all the members forming a voltaic series have to be discharged in one circuit, the energy of the effort to discharge, and the velocity of the consequent undulations must be, cæteris paribus, as the number of members which co-operate to produce the discharge. Of course the more active the ethereo-ponderable waves, the greater must be their efficacy in producing ethereal waves of polarization, as a secondary effect, agreeably to the suggestions above made, (49, 36.)

51. Hence, in a battery consisting of one galvanic pair excited by reagents of great chemical energy and conducting power, the electro-magnetic effects are pre-eminent; while De Luc’s electric columns, consisting of several thousands of minute pairs, feeble as to their chemical and conducting efficacy, are pre-eminent for statical spark-giving power, (48.) This seems to be quite consistent; since, on the one hand, the waves of polarization must be larger and slower as the pairs are bigger and fewer; and, on the other hand, smaller and more active as the pairs are more minute and more numerous.

On the perfect similitude between the Polarity communicated to Iron Filings by a Magnetized Steel Bar and a Galvanized Wire.

52. If by a sieve, or any other means, iron filings be duly strewed over a paper, resting on a bar magnet, they will all become magnets, so as to arrange themselves in rows like the links of a chain. Each of the little magnets thus created will, at its outermost end, have a polarity similar to that of the pole (of the magnet) with which it may be affiliated. Of course the resulting ferruginous rows formed severally by the two different poles of the bar will have polarities as opposite as those of the said poles.

53. In an analogous mode, if two wires be made the media of a galvanic discharge, iron filings, under their influence, will receive a magnetic polarity, arranging themselves about each wire like so many tangents to as many radii proceeding from its axis: those magnetized by one wire reacting with such as are magnetized by the other.

54. The affections of the ferruginous particles during the continuance of the current so called are precisely like those of the same particles when under the influence of the bar magnet. The great discordancy is in the fact that the influence of the magnet is permanent, while that of the wire is indebted for existence to a series of oppositely polarizing but transient impulses which proceed toward the middle of the circuit from each side, so as to produce reciprocal neutralization by meeting midway.

55. The effect upon the filings, as originally pointed out by Oersted, is precisely such as would arise were the ponderable matter of the wire, resolved by each impulse into innumerable little magnets, situated so as to form tangents to as many radii proceeding from the axis of the wire.

56. Independently of the filings, the wires react with each other as if their constitution, during subjection to the discharge, were such as above supposed. When the discharges through them concur in direction, they attract, because the left side of one is next the right side of the other, bringing the opposite poles of their little magnets into proximity; but when the discharge is made in opposite directions, the two right or the two left sides will be in proximity, and will, by the consequent approximation of the similar poles of the little magnets, be productive of repulsion.

57. From these last-mentioned facts and considerations, it must be evident that, assuming that there is in a galvanized wire a derangement of the poles of the constituent ethereo-ponderable particles analogous to that permanently existing in magnetized steel, involves no contradiction, no absurdity, nor any thing but what is consistent with the researches and inferences of Davy, Farraday, and other eminent investigators of the phenomena of nature.

Process by which the Ethereo-ponderable Atoms within a Galvanic Circuit are polarized by the Chemical Reaction.

58. In order that an ethereo-ponderable particle of oxygen in any aqueous solution shall unite with an ethereo-ponderable particle of zinc in a galvanic pair, there must be a partial revolution of the whole row of ethereo-ponderable zinc atoms, with which the atom assailed is catenated by the attractions between dissimilar poles; and likewise there must be a series of decompositions and recompositions between every atom of water existing in the circuit, an atom of hydrogen being eliminated at one end, an atom of oxygen at the other. The impulse must extend through the negative plate to the conductor, by which it communicates with the zinc or electro-positive plate. When the circuit is open, the power of combination exercised by the zinc and oxygen is inadequate to produce this movement in the whole chain of atoms, liquid and metallic; but as it is indifferent whether any two atoms are united with each other, or with any other atoms of the same kind, the chemical force easily causes them to exchange partners, as it were, when the whole are made to form a circuitous row in due contiguity.[71]

59. As we know that, during their union with oxygen, metals give out an enormous quantity of heat and electricity, it is reasonable to suppose that whenever an atom of oxygen and an atom of zinc jump into union with each other, a wave is induced in the ethereo-ponderable matter, and that this wave is sustained by the decompositions and recompositions, by means of which an atom of hydrogen is evolved at the negative plate, and probably enabled to assume the aeriform state. There must, at the same time, be a communication of wave polarity by contact of the negative plate with the connecting wire, by which the positive wave in the wire is induced. Although the inherent polarities of the atoms are not, agreeably to this view, the moving power in galvanism, yet they facilitate, and in some cases induce, the exercise of that power, by enabling it to act at a distance, when otherwise it might be inefficient.

60. This, I conceive, is shown in the effect of platina sponge, upon a mixture of the gaseous elements of water; also in Groves’s gas battery, by means of which hydrogen and oxygen gas severally react with water in syphons, so as to cause each other to condense, without any communication beside that through the platina, and an electrolytic decomposition and recomposition extending from one of the aqueous surfaces in contact with one of the gases, to the other surface in contact with the other gas.

Difference between Electro-ethereal and Ethereo-ponderable Polarization.

61. There are two species of electro-polarity which come under the head of statical electricity. One of these Farraday illustrates by supposing three bodies, A, B, and C, in proximity, but not in contact, when A, being electrified, electrifies B, and B electrifies C by induction. This, Farraday calls an action of the particles of the bodies concerned, whereas, by his own premises, it appears to me to be merely a superficial affection of the masses or of a circumambient ethereal matter. This species of polarization, to which the insulating power of air is necessary, affects the superficies of a body only, being displayed as well by a gilt globe of glass as a solid globe of metal. No sensible change appears to be produced in the ponderable conducting superficies by this inductive superficial electrification of masses; and of course no magnetism.

62. When a small image, of which the scalp has been abundantly furnished with long hair, is electrified, the hairy filaments extend themselves and move apart, as if actuated by a repulsive power: also, when iron filings are so managed as to obey the influence of the poles of a powerful magnet, (51,) they arrange themselves in a manner resembling that of the electrified hair. There is, moreover, this additional analogy, that there is an attraction between two portions of hair differently electrified, like that which arises between filings differently magnetized. Yet the properties of the electrified hair and magnetized filings are, in some respects, utterly dissimilar. A conducting communication between differently electrified portions of hair would entirely neutralize the respective electrical states; so that all the electrical phenomena displayed by them would cease. Yet such a communication made between the poles, exciting the filings, by any non-magnetic conductor, does not in the slightest degree lessen their polar affections and consequent power of reciprocal influence. Upon the electrified hair, the proximity or the contact of a steel magnet has no more effect than would result under like circumstances from any other metallic mass similarly employed; but by the approximation, and still more, the contact of such a magnet, the affection of the filings may be enhanced, lessened, or nullified, according to the mode of its employment. In the case of the hair the affection is superficial, and the requisite charging power must be in proportion to the extent of surface. In the case of the magnetized ferruginous particles, it is the mass which is affected, and, cæteris paribus, the more metal, the greater the capacity for magnetic power. In the instance of the electrified hair, as in every other of frictional excitement, the electrical power resides in imponderable ethereo-electric atmospheres which adhere superficially to the masses, being liable to be unequally distributed upon them in opposite states of polarity, consequent to a superficial polarization of the exciting or excited ponderable masses; but in the instance of bodies permanently magnetic, or those rendered transiently magnetic by galvanic influence, the ethereo-electric matter and the ponderable atoms are inferred to be in a state of combination, forming ethereo-ponderable atoms, so that both may become parties to the movements and affections of which the positive and negative waves consist.

63. Thus an explanation is afforded of the hitherto mysterious diversity of the powers of a gold-leaf electroscope and galvanoscopes, although both are to a miraculous degree sensitive—the latter to the most feeble galvanic discharge, the former to the slightest statical excitement; yet neither is in the most minute degree affected by the polarization which affects the other.

64. The charge which may exist in a coated pane affords another exemplification of statical or electro-ethereal polarity. In this case, according to Farraday, the particles of glass are thrown into a state of electro-polarity, and are, in fact, partially affected as if they belonged to a conductor; so that insulators and conductors differ only in the possession in a high degree by the one of a susceptibility of which the other is possessed to an extent barely perceptible. The facts seem to me only to show that either an insulator or conductor may be both affected by the same polarizing force, the transmission of which the one facilitates, the other prevents. I am under the impression that it is only by the disruptive process that electricity passes through glass; of course involving a fracture. It gets through a pane or jar, not by aid of the vitreous particles, but in despite of their opposing coherence. The glass in such cases is not liable to be fused, deflagrated, or dissipated, as conductors are. It is forced out of the way of the electrical waves, being incapable of becoming a party to them. Discharges will take place through a vacuity, rather than through the thinnest leaf of mica. But if, as Farraday has alleged, from within a glass flask hermetically sealed, an electrical charge has been found to escape, after a long time, it proves only that glass is not a perfect insulator, not that perfect insulation and perfect conduction are different extremes of the same property. On the contrary, the one is founded upon a constitution competent to the propagation within it of the electro-polarizing waves, with miraculous facility, while the other is founded either on an absolute incapacity, or comparatively an infinitely small ability to be the medium of their conveyance. The one extremely retards, the other excessively expedites, its passage through a space otherwise void.[72]

Competency of a Wire to convey a Galvanic Discharge is as its sectional area, while statical discharges of frictional electricity, preferring the surface, are promoted by its extension. Yet in proportion as such discharges are heavy, the ability of a wire to convey them and its magnetic energy become more dependent on its sectional area, and less upon extent of surface.

65. Reference has been made to two modes of electrical conduction, in one of which the efficacy is as the surface; in the other, as the area of a section of the conductor. Although glass be substantially a non-conductor, the power of the surface of glass when moistened or gilt to discharge statical electricity is enormous. It has been generally considered that, as a protection against lightning, the same weight of metal employed as a pipe would be more efficacious than in the usual solid form of a lightning rod: yet this law does not hold good with respect to galvanic discharges, which are not expedited by a mere extension of conducting surface. Independently of the augmentation of conducting power, consequent to radiation and contact with the air, the cooling influence of which, according to Davy, promotes galvano-electric conduction, a metallic ribbon does not convey a galvanic discharge better than a wire of similar weight and length.[73]

66. Agreeably to the considerations above stated, the sectional area of a conductor remaining the same, in proportion as any statical accumulation which it may discharge is greater, the effects are less superficial; and the ethereo-ponderable atoms are affected more analogously to those exposed to galvanic discharges. It is in this way that the discharge of a Leyden jar imparts magnetic polarization. Thus, on the one hand, the electro-ethereal matter being polarized and greatly condensed, combines with and communicates polarization, and consequently magnetism, to ethereo-ponderable bodies; while, on the other hand, these, when polarized by galvanic reaction, and thus rendered magnetic, communicate polarity to the electro-ether. Hence, statical electricity, when produced by galvanism, and magnetism, when produced by statical electricity, are secondary effects.

67. Where a wire is of such dimensions, in proportion to the charge, as to be heated, ignited, or dispersed by statical electricity, there seems to be a transitory concentration of the electric power, which transforms the nature of the reaction, and an internal wave of electro-ponderable polarization, similar to those of galvano-electricity, is the consequence.

68. As above observed, (31,) the current produced by the magneto-electric machine has all the attributes of the galvano-electric current; yet this is altogether a secondary effect of the changes of polarity in a keeper, acting upon a wire solely by dynamic induction. But if, by mere external influence, the machine above mentioned can produce within a circuit a current such as above described, is it unreasonable to suppose that the common machine, when it acts upon a circuit, may put into activity the matter existing therein, so as to produce waves of polarization, having the power of those usually ascribed to a galvano-electrical current?

69. It has been shown that both reason and the researches and suggestions of Farraday warrant the inference that ponderable atoms, in solids and liquids, may be considered as swimming in an enormous quantity of condensed imponderable matter, in which all the particles, whether ponderable or imponderable, are, in their natural state, held in a certain relative position due to the reciprocal attraction of their dissimilar poles. A galvano-electrified body differs from one in its ordinary state, in having the relative position of the poles of its ethereo-ponderable atoms so changed, that their inherent opposite polarities not being productive of reciprocal neutralization, a reaction with external bodies ensues.

70. In statical excitement the affection is superficial as respects the ponderable bodies concerned, while in dynamic excitement the polarities of the whole mass are deranged oppositely at opposite ends of the electrified mass; so that the oppositely disturbing impulses, proceeding from the poles of the disturbing apparatus, neutralize each other intermediately. Supposing the ponderable as well as the imponderable matter in a perfect conductor to be susceptible of the polar arrangement, of which an electrified state is thus represented to consist, non-conductors to be insusceptible of such polar derangement; imperfect conductors may have a constitution intermediate between metals and electrics.

71. When an electrical discharge is made through any space devoid of air or other matter, it must then find its way solely by the polarization of the rare imponderable matter existing therein; and consequently its corruscations should be proportionably more diffuse, which is actually found to be true; but when gaseous ethereo-ponderable atoms intervene, as in wire, they enable competent waves to exist within a narrower channel and to attain a greater intensity.

72. I consider all bodies as insulators which cause discharges through them to be more difficult than through a vacuum, and which, by their interposition within a circuit, can prevent that propagation of the oppositely polarizing undulations which would otherwise ensue. This furnishes a good mean of discrimination between insulators and conductors, the criterion being that a discharge ensues more readily as there is more of the one and less of the other in the way: that the one leads the waves where they would not go, the other impedes their going where they would proceed. Both in the case of disruptive discharge through air, producing a spark, or of a deflagrating discharge through wire, causing its explosion, there is a dispersion of intervening ponderable particles; and yet there is this manifest discordancy, that in one case the undulatory process of transfer is assisted, in the other resisted. The waves follow the metallic filament with intense attraction, while they strive to get out of the way of those formed by the aeriform matter, as if repelled. Hence the term disruptive, from dirumpo, to break through, was happily employed by Farraday to designate spark discharges.

73. The zigzag form of the disruptive spark shows that there is a tendency in the aeriform particles to turn the waves out of that straight course, which, if unresisted or facilitated, they would naturally pursue. On the one hand, the aerial filaments being unsuitable for the conveyance of the electric waves, these are forced by them out of the normal path—first in one direction, then in another; while, on the other hand, the finest metallic filament furnishes a channel for the electric waves, so favourable that this channel is pursued, although the consequent polarization of the conducting particles be so intense as to make them fly asunder with explosive violence. Even when a bell-wire has been dissipated by lightning, it has been found to facilitate and determine the path of the discharge.

74. The various forms of the electric spark, resulting from varying the gas through which it may be made to pass, agreeably to the researches of Farraday, is explained by the supposition that the peculiarities of the spark is partially the consequence of the polarizability of the gaseous atoms through which the discharge is made, and varies, accordingly, in its appearance.

Difference between Frictional Electricity and Galvanic does not depend on the one being superior as to Quantity, the other as to Intensity; but on the different Degrees in which the Ethereo-ponderable Atoms of the Bodies affected are deranged from their natural state of Neutralized Polarity.

75. I infer that all magneto-polar charges are attended by an affection of ponderable particles; and that the reason why the most intense statical charge does not affect a galvanometer is, that it is only when appositely excited bodies are neutralized by the interposition of a conductor as during a discharge, that ethereo-ponderable particles are sufficiently polarized to enable them to act upon others in their vicinity, so as to produce a polar affection the opposite of their own. (54.58.) In this way dynamic induction is consistently explained, by supposing that the waves of polarization, in passing along one conductor, produce, pari passu, the opposite polarization in the proximate part of any neighbouring conductor suitably constituted, situated and arranged to allow it to form a part of a circuit.

76. It is only during the state of the incessant generation and destruction of what has been called the two electricities, that the circuit, which is the channel for the passage of the polarizing waves, is endowed with electro-magnetic powers. It was, no doubt, in obedience to a perception of this fact, that Oersted ascribed the magnetism of a galvanized wire to a conflict of the electricities. Undoubtedly, that state of a conductor in which, by being a part of an electrical circuit, it becomes enabled to display electro-magnetic powers, is so far a conflict of the two electricities, as the affections of matter, which are denominated electrical, consist of two opposite polar forces, proceeding, agreeably to the language of Farraday, in opposite directions from each side of the source, and conflicting with each other, so as to be productive of reciprocal annihilation.

77. That a corpuscular change in conductors is concomitant with their subjection to, or emancipation from, a galvanic current, is proved by an experiment of Henry’s, which he afforded me an opportunity on one occasion of witnessing. I allude to the fact that sound is produced whenever the circuit is suddenly made or suddenly ruptured. By I. P. Marrian it has been observed that a similar result takes place during the magnetization or demagnetization of iron rods, by the alternate establishment or arrestation of galvanic discharges through wires coiled about them so as to convert each into an electro-magnet. Mr. Marrian represents the sound as resembling that produced by striking a rod upon one of its ends.[74][75] Sounds from this source were observed by Dr. Page in 1838. See Silliman’s Journal for that year, vol. xxxiii.

78. Thus it appears that there is an analogy between the state of matter which involves permanent magnetism, and that which constitutes a galvanic current, so far as this, that either by one or the other, during either its access or cessation, an affection of the ponderable particles concerned ensues, sufficient to produce sound.

79. Simultaneously with the production of sounds, as above stated, by the opening or closing of the galvanic circuit through a metallic rod or the coils of an electro-magnet, secondary waves are induced, called secondary currents. It seems reasonable to ascribe these waves to the same shifting of the poles, which produces the sonorific undulations.[76]

80. Within the bodies of animals and vegetables, the electro-ether may be supposed to exist as an atmosphere surrounding the ethereo-ponderable atoms of which their organs are constituted, so as to occupy all the space which is not replete with such atoms. Hence a discharge of frictional electricity may indirectly polarize the whole animal frame, by producing ethereo-ponderable polarization in the constituent atoms of the fibres of the nerves and muscles. Probably this polarization is produced more immediately in the ponderable solids by a discharge from a voltaic series or a wire subjected to electro-or magneto-dynamic induction. In the latter instances the shock is reiterated so rapidly as to appear more enduring, while in the former it is more startling and producible at an infinitely greater distance.

81. Agreeably to Farraday’s researches, (1485 to 1543,) there is reason to suppose that in frictional spark discharges, the consequent shock, light, and other peculiarities are in part owing to waves of ethereo-ponderable polarization, indirectly produced in the intervening gaseous matter.

Of Ethereo-ponderable Deflagration.

82. It is well known that between two pieces of charcoal severally attached, one to the negative, the other to the positive, pole of a numerous and well-excited voltaic series, an arch of flame may be produced by moving them apart after contact. This phenomenon evidently depends upon the volatilization of the ponderable matter concerned; since it cannot be produced before the carbon has been volatilized by contact, nor by any body besides charcoal, this being the only conductor which is sufficiently infusible, and yet duly volatilizable. Metals, similarly treated, fuse at the point of contact and cohere. On separation, after touching, a single spark ensues, which, without repetition of contact, cannot be reproduced. Hence, it may be inferred that the carbonaceous vapour is indispensable to this process, as a medium for the ethereo-ponderable polarizing waves, being soon consumed by the surrounding atmospheric oxygen. The excrescence upon the negative charcoal, observed by Silliman, together with the opposite appearance on the positive charcoal, may be owing to the lesser affinity for oxygen on the negative side.[78]

83. There may be some resemblance imagined between this luminous discharge between the poles, and that which has already been designated as disruptive; but this flaming arch discharge does not break through the air; it only usurps its place gradually, and then sustains this usurpation. It differs from the other as to its cause, so far as galvanic reaction differs from friction; moreover, it requires a volatilizable, as well as a polarizable ponderable conducting substance to enable its appropriate undulations to meet at a mean distance from the solid polar terminations whence they respectively proceed.

84. The most appropriate designation of the phenomenon under consideration is that of ethereo-ponderable undulatory deflagration. Under this head we may not only place the flaming arch, but likewise the active ignition and dissipation of fine wire or leaf metal, or when attached to one pole, and made barely to touch the other.

85. In one of Farraday’s experiments, a circuit was completed by subjecting platina points, severally proceeding from the poles of a voltaic series, while very near to each other, to the flame of a spirit lamp. This was ascribed by him to the rarefaction of the air, but ought, as I think, to be attributed to the polarizable ethereo-ponderable matter of the flame, performing the same office as the volatilized carbon in the flaming arch, between charcoal points, to which reference has been made.

Summary.

From the facts and reasoning which have been above stated, it is presumed that the following deductions may be considered as highly probable, if not altogether susceptible of demonstration:

The theories of Franklin, Dufay, and Ampere are irreconcilable with the premises on which they are founded, and with facts on all sides admitted.

A charge of frictional electricity, or that species of electric excitement which is produced by friction, is not due to any accumulation, nor to any deficiency either of one or of two fluids, but to the opposite polarities induced in imponderable ethereal matter existing throughout space however otherwise void, and likewise condensed more or less within ponderable bodies, so as to enter into combination with their particles, forming atoms which may be designated as ethereo-ponderable.

Frictional charges of electricity seek the surfaces of bodies to which they may be imparted, without sensibly affecting the ethereo-ponderable matter of which they consist.

When surfaces thus oppositely charged, or, in other words, having about them oppositely polarized ethereal atmospheres, are made to communicate, no current takes place, nor any transfer of the polarized matter: yet any conductor, touching both atmospheres, furnishes a channel through which the opposite polarities are reciprocally neutralized by being communicated wave-like to an intermediate point.

Galvano-electric discharges are likewise effected by waves of opposite polarization, without any flow of matter meriting to be called a current.

But such waves are not propagated superficially through the purely ethereal medium; they occur in masses formed both of the ethereal and ponderable matter. If the generation of frictional electricity, sufficient to influence the gold-leaf electrometer, indicate that there are some purely ethereal waves caused by the galvano-electric reaction, such waves arise from the inductive influence of those created in the ethereo-ponderable matter.

When the intensity of a frictional discharge is increased beyond a certain point, the wire remaining the same, its powers become enfeebled or destroyed by ignition, and ultimately deflagration: if the diameter of the wire be increased, the surface, proportionally augmented, enables more of the ethereal waves to pass superficially, producing proportionally less ethereo-ponderable undulation.

Magnetism, when stationary, as in magnetic needles and other permanent magnets, appears to be owing to an enduring polarization of the ethereo-ponderable atoms, like that transiently produced by a galvanic discharge.

The magnetism transiently exhibited by a galvanized wire, is due to oppositely polarizing impulses, severally proceeding wave-like to an intermediate part of the circuit where reciprocal neutralization ensues.

When magnetism is produced by a frictional discharge operating upon a conducting wire, it must be deemed a secondary effect, arising from the polarizing influence of the ethereal waves upon the ethereo-ponderable atoms of the wire.

Such waves pass superficially in preference; but when the wire is comparatively small, the reaction between the waves and the ethereo-ponderable atoms becomes sufficiently powerful to polarize them, and thus render them competent, for an extremely minute period of time, to produce all the affections of a galvano-electric current, whether of ignition, of electrolysis, or magnetization. Thus, as the ethereo-ponderable waves produce such as are purely ethereal, so purely ethereal waves may produce such as are ethereo-ponderable.

The polarization of hair upon electrified scalps is supposed to be due to a superficial association with the surrounding polarized ethereal atoms, while that of iron filings, by a magnet or galvanized wire, is conceived to arise from the influence of polarized ethereo-ponderable atoms, consisting of ethereal and ponderable matter in a state of combination.

Farradian discharges are as truly the effects of ethereo-ponderable polarization as those from an electrified conductor, or coated surfaces of glass are due to static ethereal polarization, (39, 40, 41.)[79]

THE END.

PRINTED AND STEREOTYPED BY HOLMAN & GRAY

INVOCATION OF SPIRITS.[80]

Spirits on high, or far or near, Who happen our humble chanting to hear, Our circle with your presence bless; Our souls with pious emotions impress. Come, spirits, come! our sand runs fast; Death waits for his due, and life may be past.

In mercy teach us truth to know, And, passing death’s portal, whither we go; Of your abodes the wonders teach, And how to deserve that haven to reach. Come, spirits, come! our sand runs fast; Death’s portal may yawn, and life may be past.

Say how far in the azure sky The magical homes of immortals lie:[81] Tell us how angels draw their breath— That breathing beyond the power of death.[82] Say, spirits, say I our sand runs fast; Death’s warrant may come, and life may be past.

The bliss portray which the good enjoy, The pain and remorse which the bad annoy, The sun which sheds on earth no rays, Yet glorious light in heaven displays![83] Haste and portray’ our sand runs fast; Death’s mandate may come, and life may be past.

Query to the High Spirits.

Throughout the azure realms of space Do blessed spirits cheerly fly To orbs too far for thoughts to reach, Or Ross’ reflector to descry? Or bide they near their natal orb, To mingle with their mundane friends, Striving their minds to impress with truth Which to their future welfare tends?

Reply of the Spirits.

‘Tis not to orbs vastly remote That earth-born spirits wend their flight; About their own planet to rove Will ever be their great delight. Attached by love in lieu of weight, Throughout its vast orbit they move, Ever striving with lively zeal The fate of mortals to improve.[84]

PORTUGUESE HYMN SPIRITUALIZED.

Adeste fideles læti triumphantes, Venite, venite in circulum Ortam videte cœli cognoscentiam. Venite adoremus, venite adoremus, Venite adoremus Dominum.

Ecce in nostro tempore quæ nata Veritati tibi sit gloria Patris æterni verbum clarefactum. Venite adoremus, venite adoremus, Venite adoremus Dominum.

Valde exultat chorus angelorum Resonant aulæ celestium Gloria in excelsis Deo. Venite adoremus, venite adoremus, Venite adoremus Dominum.

Translation of Portuguese Hymn, as altered.

Come hither, ye faithful, joyfully triumphing; Come, come into a circle; Behold, a knowledge of heaven is born to us. Come let us adore, come let us adore our God.

O truth, to you who art just born to us, Let there be glory rendered, The word of God being made evident. Come let us adore, &c.

Greatly does the chorus of angels exult, Causing the temples of heaven to resound: Glory be to God on high. Come let us adore, &c.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] See subsequent investigation on Media; also Plate IV. and description.

[2] These disks cost at the foundry about 37½ cents a piece. One may be used as a pattern by which to cast others.

[3] There is also this difference, that in Fig. 2 the board is supported by only three wheels, so as to have one in front under the hands of the medium, by which sufficient pressure is secured to make its rotation certain. But as the position thus given does not fall into the plane of the pulley at the back of the disk, the wheel in question is supported upon an axle which is secured in staples or holes, and carries a pulley just at the position where it is coincident with the plane aforesaid. The wheel is visible in front.

[4] Vis inertiæ, or force of inertness, is the force by which a body, when at rest, resists being put into motion, or, when in motion, resists arrestation. The force, in this latter case, is called momentum, being directly as the weight multiplied by the velocity. Thus, two pounds, moving at the rate of one foot per second, exercise exactly the same momentum as one pound moving at the rate of two feet per second.

The force of a spring, or of explosive compounds, cannot be called momentum; neither velocity nor weight enter into its constitution; though, when transferred to a projectile, it produces momentum proportional to the force with which it acts, the weight moved, and velocity imparted.

Muscular force does not come within the definition of momentum, although it produces this property in a hammer, proportionably to its weight and the resulting velocity. Nor is the force of gravity momentum, though momentum be generated by it in falling bodies.

[5] It is suggested that these words may be misapprehended. I use them in the sense given by Johnson: “Sight of any thing, commonly mental view.”

I understand that evidence to be intuitive which is obtained by the simultaneous action of the mind and the sight, and, of course, of any other of the senses. Intuitive is derived from the Latin word intuo, to look upon. “Intuere cœlum,” according to Cicero, means to look at the sky.

[6] I have since been assured by my spirit friends, that there was no deception on the part of the medium here alluded to. It has since been alleged by them that it was my own father who made the raps on the small table above mentioned, when I sat at it between the two media. It was my spirit friend, William Blodget, who rapped when the flute, tubes, and rod were held against the door, or when the rapping appeared to be made against the partition between the parlours.

[7] Excepting the difference of the table represented in length, the apparatus here described does not differ from that represented in Plate 2, which is accompanied by a description.

[8] It may be expedient to state that the disk was counterpoised by a weight at the smaller end of the board. This weight was suspended from a hook at one end of a rod, which was so fastened by staples, as to have the distance of the hook from the fulcrum adjusted so as to make the weight counterpoise the disk exactly.

This experiment may be understood by looking at Plate 3. The board employed is there represented, associated with a wire-gauze cage and spring balance. Let all these be removed in the mind’s eye. Suppose the large disk represented in the Plate I to be affixed with its axle to the board, near where the hook is represented as attached to the balance. Suppose a counter-weight at the other end of the board to balance the disk, so as to keep the board level when left to itself. Now, the cord and weights being applied, as in the experiment with table, (154,) on the medium placing her hands on the small end, the results above described ensued.

[9] Though gifted with vision, they are, nevertheless, blind.

[10] My father was a member of the convention by which the original constitution of the State of Pennsylvania was made. Subsequently, he served in the legislature, and held the office of Speaker of the Senate. His name must be associated with many of the laws of his time. During leisure he used to amuse himself with the Latin poets and historians, as well as with those of Great Britain and of France. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania have lately published a journal which he wrote of a tour, made in 1775, through New York to Canada and Niagara Falls.

[11] Is understood in the spheres as synonymous with gradual.

[12] I had remarked to the company during the evening that I felt a spirit touching my forehead. I had often before that time felt a gentle touch upon my forehead or brow, as if touched by a feather, but I did not know its cause, and this was the first intimation.

[13] Apotheosis from apo, among, and theos, god, having been used to signify translation to a place among gods, might not apo-angelosis be used to signify translation to a place among angels, from apo, among, and angelos, an angel?

[14]

“Praise undeserved is satire in disguise.”

This being manifestly true, it follows that whatever applause may be bestowed upon an author by his spiritual advisers, as he may consider them, will be so inverted in the mind’s eye of an unbeliever as to have all the efficacy of satire. Under these circumstances I should be terribly satirized were I here to give the whole of a communication made by this benevolent philanthropic spirit, of which the following is a part. Were I to give his sentiments in full, it would be rather from the motive of showing how vivacious is the interest taken in the progress of Spiritualism by certain worthies of the spirit world, and to give another exemplification of the ardour of the spirit mind after emerging from its mundane tenement. But the main motive for publishing so much of the communication in question as subjoined, is the confirmation thus afforded of the account previously given by my angel sister, of the attendance of high spirits upon my lectures at Boston.

This account was also confirmed by independent communications from two other sources. Opecancanough, the Indian chief, was present, as he gave me to understand, and without knowing the names, described some of the parties who were present.

Part of a Letter from Mrs. Gourlay to the Author.

PHILADELPHIA, November 14, 1854.

“My Dear Sir: Having finished reading your letter, I felt a very powerful influence indicating the presence of spirits. Accordingly, seating myself at the instrument, [Plate I. Fig. 2,] the following communication was rapidly given:

“‘My dear sister, say to our beloved friend and brother that I was present at his lectures in Boston, and was much pleased to hear him speak so nobly and fearlessly in the holy cause of Spiritualism. * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“‘There was a great assemblage of elevated spirits convened at our friend’s lectures in Boston. Among those whom I particularly recognised were B. Franklin, W. E. Channing, J. Q. Adams, H. Kirk White, Byron, Burns, Moore, Dr. Physick, Dr. Rush, Dr. Chalmers, and a host of others. His chief supporters were his father and mother, his loving sister Martha and brother Charles, and his friend Blodgett, Walter Gourlay, and myself.

W. W.’

“My dear friend: The above is the communication which I received, verbatim, and which you will please accept for what it is worth. I believe it came from the source whence it purports to have emanated. I questioned W. W. regarding the nature of the marks of approbation. His reply was, ‘We rapped several times.’

[15] First spiritual sphere.

[16] This spirit, I have ascertained, was the late Mr. McIlhenny, treasurer to the Athenæum, who died in August, 1854. I took the more interest in this as he was my classmate, and was present at some of the investigations which led to my conversion. I took leave of him one evening in July, 1854, after a walk in Walnut street. He then appeared to be nearly a convert to Spiritualism, though he did not deem it prudent to acknowledge his opinions publicly. His remarks coincided with those ascribed to him by the truly angelic Maria. Within the last month Maria brought him to communicate with me.

[17] To meet the curiosity of the reader, it may be well to say that communications by the pen are either impressional—that is, resulting from the volition of the writer, aided in the matter by the influence of a spirit—or they are automatic; that is, produced by the mechanical action of the spirits on the hand of the medium, entirely independent of the medium’s volition.

[18] I would state, on the authority of this lady and her relatives, many of whom were opposed to Spiritualism, that this was the first time that she had ever produced a poetical effusion; though it has not been an uncommon circumstance for her, since then, when under spiritual influence, to write page after page of extremely beautiful and excellent composition, both in prose and verse, far surpassing in elegance of language her natural powers of thought and fancy.

[19] This article should have been inserted earlier, but was mislaid.

[20] The fact that my father, my brother, my nephew, and my friend General Cadwalader, are each residing with their mundane wives, proves that in this world a hymeneal torch may be lighted, which may not be extinguished by death.

[21] I quote here the language of Samuel, the wicked pope of Judea, to Saul, respecting the destruction of the tribe of Amalek: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.”

One would think here was butchery enough to satisfy a devil, but it does not satisfy the God of the Bible. Saul is deposed for giving quarter to Agag, and not carrying his revenge so far as to destroy the flocks and herds as well as the captive king, of whom the blood-thirsty, blasphemous pontiff becomes himself the cold-blooded executioner, hewing Agag to death before the Lord. Dr. Berg alleges that men are assimilated to the god whom they worship. What ought then to be the effect of worshipping the God thus described in the Bible?

How does this comport with the extravagant precepts of Christ, agreeably to which we are to return good for evil?

There cannot in the history of any pagan country be found an instance more glaring, of the unjustifiable perpetuation of revenge, than this putting a whole people to the sword for a wrong done by their ancestors some hundred years before.

If examples draw us, while precepts do no more than lead, according to the proverb, what influence are such examples of the morality of the Bible likely to produce in those who are taught to view it as the word of God?

From the pernicious influence of such religious errors may the noble spirits of our progenitors relieve us and our offspring!

[22] Shakspeare’s king, in the tragedy of Hamlet, is made to express this correct sentiment in the midst of his villainy: “Pray I cannot, be my inclination sharp as ‘twill.” Why? because he still retained the objects for which he sinned. But though David had exposed Uriah to be killed to obtain his wife, he retained her in despite of his professed penitence.

Yet of this man Jehovah is represented as saying, “I took thee from the sheepcote, from following sheep, that thou shouldst be ruler over my people Israel, and I have been with thee wheresoever thou hast walked, and have cut off all thine enemies from before thee, and have made thee a name of the great men that are in earth.”

Thus God is represented as the constant companion, and, of course, accomplice of his butchering, robbery, and treachery: just the part which would belong to Satan, were such an evil being to exist. He is called to account for the murder of Uriah, but the pagans whom he robbed and massacred were only vermin in the estimation of the Jewish Jehovah.

[23] In Great Britain, nearly forty millions of dollars per annum.

[24] Perhaps, however, the high-church Episcopalians occupy middle ground.

[25] God is made out to be a strange bungler. Though omnipotent, he does not make his creatures as he wishes them to be; and although omniscient, has to subject them to trial to discover what they are. He does not inform them of that which he wishes them to believe, but punishes them and their children to the third and fourth generation for his own omission. For no other reason than his having afforded to a particular nation more knowledge of his will than he had afforded to others, he gives them a right to extirpate their neighbours and take possession of their lands.

[26] “I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.”

[27] “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.“

[28] The fact that so many of the Israelites, assisted and of course countenanced by Aaron, the brother of Moses, afterward made high-priest, were thus induced to worship an idol, shows that they were pious but ignorant. It has elsewhere been urged that any one that worships, means to worship right as much as a person who pays a debt means to pay the right creditor. It argues against the sufficiency of the facts and reasoning by which Moses supported his pretensions to inspiration, that he had to resort to his sword in order to prevent his people from worshipping idols. That they were sincere, must be evident from their relinquishing their golden trinkets for the purpose of furnishing materials for the calf.

[29] It must be admitted that Moses does not seem to have cared whether his soul perished or not, provided he could get enough territory on this side of the grave, by pleading God’s sanction, and the skilful use of the sword. He seems to have valued the favour of Jehovah only for worldly objects. Had it been otherwise, in lieu of so much stress being laid upon the “promised land,” it had been more wisely rested on the hope of heaven. Had Moses obtained a knowledge of the spirit world, the Sadducees had not been materialists, nor the Pharisees worldly-minded, corrupt hypocrites, as alleged by Christ.

[30] “Two or three years since Professor Bronn described twenty-six thousand six hundred and seventy-eight species; and, upon an average, one thousand species are discovered every year. M. Alcide D’Orbigny, in 1850, stated the number of mollusks and radiated animals alone at seventeen thousand nine hundred and forty-seven species.”

[31] [The use of the word “demons” in the text would seem to make it very uncertain that the Catholic school entertains the doctrine of an individual, personal devil. When used in the plural, as it often is, it cannot mean the devil, yet both singular and plural, the word “demon” seems to convey the same idea. Scripture commentators make the word demon to signify a spirit, whether good or bad. But our author does not seem to have yet become very thoroughly grounded in the doctrine of the communion of angels with man; which will certainly be found to be the only tangible doctrine.—TRANSLATOR.]

[32] [Having reached this stage of our author’s remarks, his translator begs leave to submit them to a transient review. It is evident that his investigations in the physical demonstrations, relating to spiritual philosophy, fall very short of the intelligence of the present time. He seems to be a total stranger to that flood of truth and love that has for years been pouring its blessings on the hearts and minds of tens of thousands of delighted and grateful recipients in the Western hemisphere, and by the very means that appear to have been fully in his power of reaching that heavenly boon, but which were all exhausted to convince the world that the devil has nothing to do with it.

This is certainly a point gained on Catholic ground, and had our friend supplied some argument equally conclusive for theologians of the opposing school, he would probably save them the sin of making out of the devil, by imputation, a veritable saint.

The question will naturally arise with his readers, If the power and intelligence do not emanate from the devil, from whom or what do they emanate? But on this subject, from some reason that can only be guessed at, our author, the abbot, is so far silent. The confirmed theory of spirit intercourse, when the vehicle is mechanical or automatic, makes the character and intelligence of the communication depend on the communicating spirit, subject to apparent irregularities. But our author, in his hurry perhaps to prove his favourite postulate of excluding the devil, makes them depend on the one, as he says, who “consults the table.” If he speaks Greek, then the table talks Greek, and ditto for all other languages, &c. But certainly the marquis would corner him here. He says, also, that the motive power is intercepted by a non-conductor, as silk round the hands. Although this may be true to some extent with feeble mediums, still the fact that tables often move without contact with any one, must nullify the abbot’s theory, whatever it may be.]

[33] [This is probably correct, when the medium writes impressionally; but exactly the reverse is true when the writing is automatic, or mechanically controlled by the spirit.—TRANSLATOR.]

[34] Our author seems to confound his dramatis personæ: he first says it is the language of the communicant, and afterward the language of the medium which the spirit understands. But the simple theory is, according to the experience of the Western hemisphere, that what is communicated depends on the intelligence of the communicating agent, which is the spirit. That spirits, it is true, possess the clairvoyant faculty, and can read our thoughts, but those thoughts must be clothed in a language they understand.—TRANSLATOR. [I am under the impression that the power of the spirit to construe our thoughts, varies with the spirit and medium, and with the same medium under different conditions as to health and tranquillity of mind. No invariable rule can, in my opinion, be said to exist as to the powers of spirits to learn our thoughts, whether we speak one language or another.—DR. HARE.]]

[35] This communication, as well as those immediately preceding and following it, would have been inserted under the head of Corroborative Evidence, page 55, &c., had they been received in time.

[36] [According to my spirit friends, this earth forms one of them, the first; so that there are six spirit spheres.]

[37] Andrew Jackson Davis.

[38] Wood-cuts of the characters alluded to in this and the succeeding paragraphs, may be seen in Mr. Capron’s book.

[39] “Mr. Sunderland, in his ‘Book of Human Nature,’ p. 280, says this was the first of the spirit writing, but Mr. Capron alleges that he was acquainted with cases of this kind long before the disturbances at Stratford.”

[40] Latterly, Sir David Brewster has conceived that only three elementary species of light are requisite, according to the theory of emission, to perform all the offices which Newton ascribed to seven.

[41] It should be understood, that when two magnetic needles are associated by the contact of dissimilar poles, the extreme poles do not lose their magnetism, although it will be more feeble than when the needles are independently situated.

[42] Explanation of the Galvanic Pile, Battery, or Series.—When pieces of zinc and silver are so placed in the mouth as to have their surfaces separated by the tongue, their extremities extending beyond it externally, on allowing the latter to touch each other, a metallic taste is perceived by the person whose tongue is subjected to the process thus described. It has been ascertained that at the same time a minute portion of the zinc is oxydized at the expense of the water which exists in the saliva.

Suppose a pile of plates of zinc and silver, or copper, alternating, to be separated into couples by the interposition of moistened cloth; each plate will on one side touch its partner, on the other side the moistened cloth. Every couple of zinc and copper separated by the cloth are situated as the pair above described, when separated by the tongue, and are equally capable of giving a discharge which would be sensible to the taste, under those circumstances. The plates which are in metallic contact have no such disposition to discharge, because there is no moisture to act upon them, and no diversity of electrical state can be excited on account of their great conducting power, which would neutralize any such excitement as soon as it could be created. The surfaces separated by the cloth cannot discharge to each other, because there is no conductor extending from one to the other. But as the whole pile is a conductor of electricity, to discharge every pair entering into its constituency it is only necessary to touch each end simultaneously with a good conductor—a wire, for instance. The whole series will then be discharged at once, and the energy of the discharge is proportional to the number to be thus discharged. There is an uncertainty and obscurity as to the precise rationale of the effect thus obtained. There is as much difference about this as there is about the nature of matter. It will not be expedient, therefore, in presenting a popular view, to enter upon that intricate question, and will be enough to state the laws and facts which are admitted generally by men of science. It is universally admitted that, if each of the terminal plates, in such a pile or series, have a platina wire soldered or otherwise well connected with it, the other ends of the wires extending into some water, this liquid will be decomposed, and a similar decomposition may, directly or indirectly, be effected of various substances held in solution by water, as well as substances liquified by heat. Moreover, when the same wire is made to form the means of discharge by extending from one terminal plate to the other, it acquires the property of attracting iron filings, and, so long as the discharge through it is sustained, will cause the compass needle to arrange itself always at right angles to the wire. Under these circumstances, according to the Franklinian theory, a current of electricity passes from the positive to the negative pole; according to the theory of Dufay, a fluid proceeding from each pole, they combine in the wire. According to the view above given, two opposite waves of polarization pass, by which the metallic atoms or particles are shifted from their natural position, so as to act externally, as already stated.

It is not, I believe, known to whom the world is indebted for the fundamental observation in galvanism, made, as has been mentioned, by the assistance of the tongue and plates of silver and zinc. Subsequently, Galvani, probably without any reference to this phenomenon, ascertained some other consequences of the reaction of the elementary pair; but to Volta we owe the pile or series above described. In whatever form voltaic series may have been subsequently constructed, the main principles are the same, the reaction of chemical agents so arranged in succession as to be productive of that intensity of discharge, and powers of decomposition, to which allusion has been made.

These have latterly been called electrolytic; and decomposition, by the voltaic series, has been called electrolysis, by Farraday—a beautiful, well-conceived, and expressive word. (See Essay on Electrical Theory, in the Appendix.)

[43] It were absurd to draw any conclusion from this, that incomprehensibility is a reason for believing the miracles ascribed to Mohammed or any other religious impostor. That we cannot understand how a result is accomplished is no reason for disbelieving it in opposition to the evidence of our senses; but, at the same time, it forms no reason for believing, of itself, but is rather a clog upon belief, when intuitively awakened.

[44] In this last sense it is used as synonymous with essence. By chemists, latterly, spirit of turpentine is called oil of turpentine. All the volatile oils obtained by delicate distillation, usually with water, like oil of turpentine, are called essential oils or essences.

As respects the employment of language to express ideas when a new view is originated, there is a choice of evils; we are placed between Scylla and Charybdis. There is no alternative but to use an old word in a sense more or less new, or to coin a new one. In either case there is a manifest disadvantage; and the question arises, shall we teach a new meaning for an old word, or present to those to whom we would convey our ideas a new idea with a new word to designate it? The word matter, it will be found, has, in Webster’s dictionary, ten meanings assigned to it. Though in some of its acceptations it may be considered as applicable to every thing that exists, so as to qualify space so far as to distinguish it from nihility. Nevertheless, it has been used as distinguishing those substances which are neither spiritual nor mental. The antagonism of spirit and matter in the words, “There is a spiritual body and a material body,” is not warranted in chemistry, since the distillate or spirit evolved by distillation is a material body, however it may be more volatile or of less density than the caput mortuum left in the alembic or retort.

[45] It is a remarkable fact that, although in later times the Jews have been so frequently named after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it does not appear to have been customary during the time which intervened between the supposed era of Moses and that of the finding of the Pentateuch in the temple.

This serves to show that the Pentateuch is a fabrication of the priesthood and King Josiah.

[46] The following trash is thus made to be specified by the God of the universe:—gold, silver, brass, blue, purple, goats’ hair, red rams’-skins, badger skins, shittim-wood, oil for light, oil for anointing, spices, sweet incense, onyx-stones, shew-bread, candlesticks with six branches, almond-shaped bowls with a knop and a flower, knop and branches of beaten gold, seven lamps, large dishes, curtains of fine linen, spoons, cherubims of gold. Eight columns, nearly one hundred verses, are taken up with this mummery, expressly directed by Jehovah himself.

Now, let the use Moses made of his opportunities be compared with that which I have made of those afforded me by the spirits, and then judge between Spiritualism and self-called orthodoxy.

[47] “Nec ab ipso scriptum constat, nec ab ejus apostolis sed longo post tempore a quibusdam incerti nominis viris, qui ne sibi non haberetur fides scribentibus quæ nescirent, partim apostolorum, partim eorum que apostolos secuti viderentur nomina scriptorum suorum frontibus indiderunt, asseverantes SECUNDUM cos, se scripsisse quæ scripserunt.—Quoted by Lardner, vol. 2, p. 221.

[48] “By all persons, understanding strictly all parsons, for the common people were nobody, and never at any time had any voice, judgment, or option in the business of religion, but always believed that which their godfathers and godmothers did promise and vow that they should believe. God or devil, and any Scriptures their masters pleased, were always all one to them.

[49] “‘Almost from the apostolic age!’ Why, the text itself, if it prove any thing, proves that such forged writings were in existence absolutely IN the apostolic age, and among the apostles themselves.

[50] “Omnia quæ Christianismo conducere putabant bibliis suis interseruerunt.—Tindalio citante.

[51] “Si forte accidisset, ut Johannis Evangelium per octodecim secula priora prosus ignotum jacuisset, et nostris demum temporibus, in modium productum esset omnes haud dubie uno ore confiterentur Jesum a Johanne descriptum longe alium esse ac illium Matthæi, Marci, et Lucæ, nec utramque descriptionem simul veram esse posse.—Carol. Theoph. Bretschneider Probab, Lipsiæ, 1820.

[52] “Here it is. ‘Messala V. C. consule, Constantinopoli, jubente Anastasia Imperatore, sancta evangelia, tanquam ab idiotis evangelistis composita, reprehenduntur et emendantur.’—Victor Tununensis, Cave’s Historia Literaria, vol. i. p. 415—i. e., ‘The illustrious Messala being Consul, by the command of the Emperor Anastasias, the holy Gospels, as having been written by idiot evangelists, are censured and corrected.’—Victor, Bishop of Tunis in Africa.

[53] “See Beausobre, quoted in the Manifesto of the Christian Society; and this and the preceding extract vindicated, in the author’s Syntagma, against the vituperations of the evangelical Dr. John Pye Smith, in locis.”

[54] Josephus, book iv. chap. ii. page 49.

[55] Ibid. book iv. chap. vi. page 53.

[56] Josephus, book iv. chap. viii. page 55.

[57] See vol. ii. page 42, Huc’s Travels.

[58] According to Farraday’s researches and general experience, we have reason to believe that all particles of matter are endowed with one or the other of two species of polarity. This word polarity conveys the idea that two terminations in each particle are respectively endowed with forces which are analogous, but contrary in their nature; so that of any two homogeneous particles, the similar poles repel each other, while the dissimilar attract; likewise, when freely suspended, they take a certain position relatively to each other, and on due proximity, the opposite polar forces, counteracting each other, appear to be extinct. When deranged from this natural state of reciprocal neutralization, their liberated poles react with the particles of adjacent bodies, or those in the surrounding medium. Under these circumstances, any body which may be constituted of the particles thus reacting is said to be polarized, or in a state of polarization.

Statical implies stationary; undulatory, wave-like.

[59] Communicated to the American Philosophical Society.

[60] The words gyration, vortex, and whirl are considered as synonymous, and used indifferently to avoid monotony.

[61] I consider a wire as galvanized, when it is made the medium of the discharge from a galvanic battery.

[62] In some electro-magnetic apparatus, the polarity of an electro-magnet is reversed more than 100 times in a second.

[63] See Silliman’s Journal, vol. xxxviii. p. 215, 1840.

[64] This seems to have been entirely overlooked in his suggestions respecting the nature of material atoms. It appears to me that the characteristics thus insisted upon are incompatible with the idea that each property is of itself a diffusible matter, and that in such atoms two polarities can exist inseparable from each other.

[65] Pouillet suggests that when the passage of a ray of light through glass, is influenced by a powerful magnet, agreeably to the experiments of Farraday, “consistently with the undulatory theory of light, it is the ether of the body submitted to the experiment, which would be modified by the magnetism, and that it would be very difficult to recognise whether it is modified without any participation of the ponderable matter with which it is so intimately connected.” Thus the existence of matter, composed of ethereal as well as ponderable particles, is sustained by all the evidence which has been brought to uphold the undulatory theory of light.—L. & E. Phil. Mag. &c., for 1846, vol. xxviii., page 335.

[66] The word statical has been used to designate phenomena which are the effects of electricity when at rest, as when accumulated upon conductors or the surfaces of panes or jars. Phenomena which are supposed to arise from electricity in motion (forming a current) are designated as dynamic. Thus, when charging one side of a pane produces the opposite state in the other, the effect upon the latter is ascribed to statical induction; but when a discharge of electricity through one wire, causes a current in another, forming an adjacent circuit, the result is ascribed to dynamic induction. This method of designation is employed whether the alleged current be owing to electricity generated by friction, as in the case of a machine, or generated by chemical reaction, as in the case of a galvanic battery. A good word is wanting to distinguish electricity, when produced by friction, from electricity produced by galvano-chemical reaction: for want of a better, I will resort to that employed by Noad, (frictional,) which has the advantage of being self-explanatory.

[67] As the word ether is used in various senses, the syllables “electro” being prefixed, serve to designate that which is intended.

[68] See my communication on “Free Electricity,” in Silliman’s American Journal of Science, vol. iii., New Series, number for May, 1847.

[69] The sectional area of a conductor is the area of the superficies which would be exposed by cutting it through at right angles to its axis.

[70] According to Colomb’s experiments, electrical attraction and repulsion are inversely as the squares of the distances: ought not the inductive power of statical charges which is produced by those forces, and which precedes and determines the length of the resulting spark, to obey the same law?

If this calculation be correct, the intensity must be as the squares of the striking distances, as indicated by sparks.

It may be urged that the striking distances, as measured by the length of the sparks, is in the compound ratio of the quantity and intensity. As to the quantity, however, galvanic sources have always been treated as pre-eminent in efficacy, so that on that side there could be no disparity. Moreover, I have found, that in galvanic apparatus of only one, or even of two pairs, as in the calorimotors, the intensity lessened as the surfaces were enlarged. By a pair of fifty square feet of zinc surface, a white heat could not be produced in a wire of any size, however small. The calorific power of such apparatus can only be made evident by the production of a comparatively very low temperature, in a comparatively very large mass.

[71] Suppose a number of boys and girls, associated as partners for a dance, to stand up in a row, severally united, and distinguished into couples by those joining hands; the sexes being regularly alternating, so that no two of the same sex should be hand in hand. Under these conditions no effort to take a boy from one end of the row, or a girl from the other end, could be effected with the consent of the couples concerned, both partners in which would thus be deprived of the power of joining in the dance. But should it be understood that only an exchange of partners was all that should be intended, and, consistently, a boy from one end and a girl from the other end of the row, taken simultaneously and allowed to form a couple, forthwith, the rest merely shifting their hands from one neighbour to another, there would no longer be the same motive for resistance and the required exchange might be cheerfully accomplished.

[72] By a void I mean a Torrecellian vacuum. The omnipresence of the electro-ether must render the existence of a perfect void impossible.

[73] It is well known that Wollaston effected the decomposition of water by the aid of a powerful electrical machine. Having enclosed platina wires within glass tubes, these were fused so as to cover the ends. The glass was afterward so far removed, by grinding, as to expose minute metallic points to the liquid. Under these circumstances, the electricity conveyed by the wires, being prevented from proceeding over them superficially, was obliged to make its way through the ethereo-ponderable matter of which metals consist. Instead of proving the identity of galvanism with frictional electricity, this experiment shows that in one characteristic, at least, there is a discordancy. At the same time it may indicate that ethereal may give rise to ethereo-ponderable undulations.

[74] Agreeably to experiments of Farraday, the particles of a glass prism may be as influenced by an electro-magnet as to affect the passage of polarized light.

[75] L. and E. Phil. Mag. and Jour., vol. xlv. p. 383, 1844.

[76] These phenomena excite more interest in consequence of the employment, for medical purposes, of an apparatus originally contrived by Callan, but since ingeniously modified by our countryman, Dr. Page, into a form which has been designated as the electrotome. A coil of coarse copper wire, covered with cotton, like bonnet wire, is wound about a wooden cylinder. Around the coil thus formed, a coil of fine copper wire similarly covered is wound, leaving the extremities accessible. One end of the coarse coil communicating constantly with one pole of a galvanic battery, the other end is left free; so that by scraping with it the teeth of a rasp attached to the other pole, a rapid closing and opening of the circuit may be effected. Under these circumstances, an observer, holding the ends of the fine coil, receives shocks more or less severe, according to the construction of the battery, the energy of the agents employed to excite it, or the total weight and relative dimensions of the coils as to length and sectional area. Agreeably to the received doctrine, the shocks thus produced are owing to secondary currents caused by dynamic induction. Agreeably to the hypothesis which I have advanced, the atoms of the coarse wire, polarized by waves proceeding from the poles of the battery, induce a corresponding polarization of the atoms of the fine wire; the aggregate polarity imparted being as the number of atoms in the former to the number of atoms in the latter: or (to use an equivalent ratio) as the weight of the coarse, to the weight of the fine wire. But as on breaking the circuit through the coarse wire, the ethereo-ponderable atoms in both wires resume their neutral positions, while this requires each circuit to be run through within the same minute interval, the velocities of their respective waves will be inversely as their sectional areas and directly as their lengths: in other words, the velocity in the fine wire will be as much greater as the channel which it affords is narrower and longer. The cylinder included within the coils as above stated being removed, a cylindrical space is vacated. If into the cavity thus made iron rods, like knitting needles, be introduced, one after the other, while the apparatus is in operation, the shocks increase in severity as the number augments; so that from being supportable they may be rendered intolerable. The shock takes place without the presence of iron, but is much increased by its assistance.[77]

These facts appear to me to justify a surmise that the ethereo-ponderable atoms of iron, in becoming magnetized and demagnetized, co-operate with the ethereo-ponderable atoms of the copper coils in the induction of secondary undulations. It is conceived that these may be owing to the intestinal change attended by sound, as above stated, (73;) this being caused by a sudden approximation of the poles of the atoms, previously moved apart by the influence of the galvanized coil. But if this sudden coming together of the previously separated poles of atoms within a magnetized cylinder of iron, can contribute to the energy of secondary waves, it is consistent to infer that these waves owe their origin to an analogous approximation of the separated poles of the cupreous atoms, forming the finer coil, in which the secondary undulations may be created without the presence of iron. Of course, this reasoning will apply to all cases in which the phenomena hitherto attributed to Farradian currents are the result of dynamic induction.

Thus it appears that the polarization of magnets, and that created and sustained when a galvanized coil or helix acts upon another in proximity, have the same relation to galvanic discharges that the charges upon insulated surfaces have to their appropriate discharges. The permanent magnetism of steel seems to have some analogy with the charge upon a coated pane, while we may consider as analogous with the charges upon insulated conductors, already adverted to, (61, 62,) that state of the ethereo-ponderable particles, (38,) of a wire helix, which state, resulting from the influence of an included magnet, or neighbouring galvanized coil, and being discharged on a change of relative position, or breach of the galvanizing circuit, is productive of spark, shock, ignition, or electrolysis, as exemplified by Callan’s coil, Page’s electrotome, or the magneto-electric machine.

[77] Agreeably to the usual construction, the cylinder about which the inner coarse wire coil is wound is originally of iron, so that there is as much of this metal contained as it can hold. Various contrivances are resorted to for the closing and opening of the circuit, which are more ingenious and convenient than scraping a rasp, as above described.

[78] American Journal of Science, vol. x. p. 121, 1826.

[79] It is well known that if a rod of iron be included in a coil of coated copper wire, on making the coil the medium of a voltaic discharge, the wire is magnetized. Agreeably to a communication from Joule, in the L. & E. Phil. Mag. & Jour. for Feb,, 1847, the bar is at the same time lengthened, without any augmentation of bulk, so that its other dimensions must be lessened in proportion to the elongation.

All these facts tend to prove that a change in the relative position of the constituent ethereo-ponderable atoms of iron accompanies its magnetization, either as an immediate cause or as a collateral effect.

[80] To the tune of Moore’s “Canadian Boat Song.”

[81] See paragraph 410.

[82] See paragraph 449.

[83] See paragraph 415.

[84] Tune “Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon.”

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