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much is it in itself inclined to peace, so much attached to the quiet of its own home, that any disturbance of its equilibrium is full of peril to the intruding foe. When by any means it has been ousted from its bed, it is crushingly oppressive to the power that holds it in captivity, and at last impatiently indignant, scorns its barriers and rushes to the bosom and freedom of its home, with terrific ruin to its opposers. But though so peaceful on one side and so wrathful on the other, yet between these extremes, and as the result of them, it is exceedingly loving and affection. ate, readily dividing and resolving itself into atoms or definite proportions, which by their various elective affinities, freely and actively embrace each other and then take their departure to settle in their own appropriate homes in the actual world of earth, water and air.

In its gaseous state, matter seems to have been seized and carried away by that viewless thief, caloric, which robs it of its character, alike of its inert lifeless weight, and of its active lively affinity, scatters it up and down in space, and finally leaves it, in its relation to itself, destitute of all energy, imponderable and indifferent. But then in its relation to forces beyond itself, it seems to be absolutely insuperable, offering an amount of resistance beyond all calculation. On one side it is wholly surrendered to its opposite pole, and has no proper positive character, but is weightless, odorless, tasteless, viewless and soundless, not able even to breathe. On the other side it resists any force that would compel it to any motion or compress it to any shape. This seems to have been the primitive condition of matter when called into being, a condition, as analagous as the lower can be to the higher, to that of our first parents in the garden of Eden. But though on one side wholly at the command of the power that fills and animates it, and through that power on the other, totally invincible to any external force, yet midway between these extremes, it seems to be perfectly self-possessed, and constitutionally disposed per se to leave its gaseous state, and, volventibus annis, to descend first into the fluid and finally into the solid state, and in this way to acquire character, namely, weight, taste, odor, color and sound, respectively characterizing the five primary classes of substances which answer to the five human senses, namely, earths, acids, alkalies, combustibles and minerals.

Between chaotic matter and its essential force, appears material law, which is truly worthy to be dignified with the title, organic, in as much as it is through it that we have at once the wonderful phenomena of the starry heavens and the equally wonderful, though in comparison pigmy phenomena in the struc

ture of our globe. Indeed the common notions attached to the terms law and organic, necessarily link them together. A law that is not organic, that does not develop itself in a uniform and logical way, is no law, and whatever is organic, must be according to law. But material law of course is infinitely lower and less complicated than the laws of personality: still matter must have law, or else forever remain chaos and never come to cosWhat this law is can be known only by the united experience of both our outward and inward life.

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The force of gravity is complete only in matter in its solid state, and the particular law at this point is evidently convergency. This is the natural tendency of gravity, and by it alone does matter become solid. But in this state under the action of law, matter cannot remain shapeless and chaotic. Consequently we find it actually polarized, that is, with a right and a left side, and thence also with a front and a rear. To its objective centre, the sun, it turns neither its face nor its back, as if either to surrender itself wholly to it or else wholly to deny its authori ty; but to that centre it turns indeed the right hand of allegi ance, while at the same time it faces its own purpose in another direction, not opposite, but at right angles. Thus neither nullifies the other, and the earth maintains its separate being: but it is the polarized sun that has thus polarized the earth, just as it is the free Deity that has created free man. Matter is thus extended in two ways, having both latitude and longitude and consequently sphericity. The spherical then is the proper form of matter in its entire mass, as also of its particles when in a free and fluid state. This form is possible, not under a law that acts in a line diametrically against itself, but in directions angular to each other as radius and tangent. Convergency is thus resolv ed into its elementary laws of polarity, sphericity and angularity, the central one being that alone in which the other two find their common measure and become intelligible, just as the simple circle measures the angular movements of space and time.

Affinity is free to exert its force on matter perfectly, only in its fluid state. In this state, matter, under the force of affinity, easily divides itself, or, to use a term that properly belongs to man alone, individualizes itself, and the law of this operation is atomicity, or the law of equivalent proportions. The atoms of ele mentary substances may either be assembled in a free and pure state, in which the law is uniformity or equiformity; or there may be a chemical union by atoms between two or three different substances, in which case the law on one side is triformity, and on the other, biformity. The single atom of cause is the

common measure, and the three forms correspond with the three measurements of quantity, the solid, line and surface.

Caloric has expended its entire force and so brought itself to a state of equilibrium and indifference, only when it has brought matter to a perfectly gaseous state. The law of action here is divergency, not indeed diametrically against itself, but rather tangential to itself. Matter, under the forming hand of caloric, is in itself perfectly passive; and the law here, (to borrow a term that properly belongs to vegetable terminology,) is plasticity; but in its relation to other forces it is altogether rebellious, yielding it may be to violence for a moment, but only to recoil upon its oppressor with terrific vengeance. In this respect the law is elasticity. But both of these extremes are possible only through a higher principle or law, namely that of mobility, or absolute motion in space. Thus then the highest law of matter in itself considered, is sphericity; in its objective relations it is mobility; while its proper organic condition is due to the processes and laws of chemical affinity. All of this corresponds to the laws of the human world, namely, on the one hand to those of individual being, on the other to those of the state, and finally to those of the family in the centre.

Having considered the ideal and the real, we may now enter the sphere of the actual. Here that general force or essence that belongs to matter, appears in separate and distinct forms in the planets and other heavenly bodies. Each of these bodies has its own orbit and offices, and the force that fills and moves it, is a true soul or anima, whose body is no longer a chaos, but a cosmos or world. The world and its anima are not bound together by merely abstract law, but by this law now as a living concrete force, which gives us action as the highest, the culminating category in the sphere of matter.

In this anima mundi or world-soul, we have the actual dynamic agents that are concerned in all material phenomena. Ín the left extreme is magnetism, in the right electricity, and in the centre galvanism. These are nothing more nor less than gravity, affinity and caloric polarized, and are thus the actual of these three forces or possibilities of matter in its chaotic state. As already stated, it is the polarity of the sun, the objective centre of the earth, that polarizes this latter, just as an artificial magnet polarizes whatever is brought within the range of its influence; and thus as a matter of course polarizes those active agents which animate the world. Gravity, affinity and caloric, if not polarized, might possibly make matter up into balls; but these balls, if endowed with motion at all, would only roll and tumble about

in any and every direction, with axes as changeable and unstable as their motions.

But though polarized, still magnetism, galvanism, and elec tricity, if separated from each other, would be wholly powerless. But this total separation, from the a priori necessity of the case, is impossible, and hence the properties of each are continually appearing among those of the other two. They are therefore always actually united; but each in its turn is made the base of union, and thus owes its own proper activity and phenomena to the presence of the other two. When the left extreme is the base, we have, as stated, the actual of gravity, namely magnetism, which acts internally in matter, and not only polarizes the world as a whole, but also all its parts. Its power is altogether a subjective, individualizing one, and of course contractive in every direction from the periphery inward, as if the earth were made up of spike-form magnets with their points wedged inward towards the centre; so that if the earth were a perfect sphere, its contractive force for itself, and attractive for bodies beyond it, would not be greatest at the poles, but equal in all parts of its surface. This force of course is strongest at the surface, where alone magnetism and electricity have their angular union, and varies in the same proportion in both directions inward and outward. Thus the surface of the earth, wherein the currents of magnetism and electricity cross each other, is completely covered with a viewless muscular net work, whose tendency is to com. press the earth into smaller and still smaller dimensions. In this way the contractive expels the expansive force, and thus tends by its terrific embrace, completely to exanimate the earth, and reduce it to a lifeless and motionless mass, giving us the actual night of nature, absolutely cold and silent. Darkness then, such as could be felt, would be the consummation of magnetism, and the whole earth, like loadstone, would be black as Egypt. The cold and dark silence of the polar regions of the earth, dwarfs, blackens and stupifies all that it touches.

When in the present case, the right extreme is the base of union, we have electricity, the proper concrete of caloric, or caloric in action. This does not mean caloric as eliminated from matter, that is, free and sensible as it is called, for that is heat; nor is it caloric in its latent state, for then it is properly quiescent; but it is caloric polarized by the presence of the same agent from the sun, and thus animated, vivified, and in its turn rendered vivific in its relation to objects that come in contact with it. For this reason caloric is a necessary agent in developing magnetism and electricity, or in rendering objects magnetic and elec

tric. Hence it is electricity, or polarized caloric, that polarizes gravity, giving us magnetism proper, and the polarity of the earth. Here theory and empiricism march hand in hand to the same result, namely, that the earth, and of course also magnetism, owes its polarity to the presence of electricity. Thus it is always that the objective quickens its subject, so that the latter owes its life and all its phenomena to the presence, power and authority of the former.

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As the solid earth is the home of magnetism, so air, or the actual of matter in its gaseous state, is the proper kingdom of electricity here it reigns supreme; here it moves with astonishing celerity, and its motion is perpetual. This activity, as intimated above, is occasioned by the influence of the same agent as it reaches it objectively from the sun. Thus called into life and put in motion, it is, or ought to be, the immediate cause of all the phenomena in the region of air; occasioning evaporation and odors, raising winds and storms; kindling fires, igniting the air, tracking its course in flame; radiating, rushing, rebounding; cracking, crashing and rending the skies; bellowing, booming and thundering; till the heavens depart in terror, stagger, groan and collapse; and the prostrate earth itself shakes at the awful wrath that gleams and rolls in majesty above.

But between the darkness, cold and silence of magnetism, and this resounding tempest of electricity, we have the genial warmth, the cheering light, and the winning blush of galvanism. As we have seen, galvanism is polarized affinity, and is consequently the social principle and agent among material bodies. In the quiet earth it builds its fireside, and completes its social circle. Here it is the father of atoms, and the patriarchal priest through whose kind offices they find and unite with each other. Matter in its fluid state is the proper realm of galvanism, as it is here alone that the presence of a polarized agent can polarize atoms and thus dispose them to unite, and also render that union possible, by affording mobility to these atoms. In this wonderful process, three other distinct powers are developed, namely color, light and heat. It is said that light is the union of all colors, and doubtless this cannot be disproved. But the two opposing theories of light unite in making it altogether objective. This however of necessity cannot be the case. To be at all real, light, color and heat must have their subjects in which they naturally inhere, as well as their objects from which they proceed. Color can as well be evolved from the blackness of the loadstone, as from the whiteness of sunlight. In the former however it is latent and in the latter it is actual.

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