Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

368 OF MATTER, MIND, AND SPIRIT.1789. Thus, while assuming the existence of fewer imponderable causesthan the celebrated author of the speculation has himself proposed, weexplain the conducting power of metals, without being under the necessityof attributing to void space the property of electrical conduction. Moreover,I consider it quite consistent to suppose that the presence of theethereal basis of electricity is indispensable to electrical conduction, andthat diversities in this faculty arc due to the proportion of that materialpower present, and the mode of its association with other matter. Theimmense superiority of metals will be explained, by referring it to theirbeing peculiarly replete with the ethereal basis of heat and electricity.1790. Hence Farraday's suggestions respecting the materiality of whathas heretofore been designated as the properties of bodies, furnish themeans of refuting his arguments against the existence of ponderable impenetrableatoms as the basis of cohesion, chemical affinity, momentum,and gravitation.1791. But I will, in the next place, prove that his suggestions not onlyfurnish an answer to his objections to the views inthis respect heretoforeentertained, but are likewise pregnant with consequences directly inconsistentwith the view of the subject which he has recently presented.1792. I have said that of all the powers which are, according to Farraday'sspeculations, to be deemed material, gravitation can alone be ponderable;since, according to his speculations, gravitation, in common withevery power heretofore attributed to impenetrable particles, must be amatter independently pervading the space throughout which it is perceived.This being the consequence, by what tie is gravitation, or, inother words, weight—indissolubly attached to the rest?It cannot be pretendedthat either of the powers is the property of any other. Each ofthem is an m^ and cannot play the part of an a, not only because an 77i,an effect, cannot be an a, its cause, but because, according to the premises,no a can exist. Nor can it be advanced that they are the same power,since chemical affinity and cohesion act only at insensible distances, whilegravitation acts at any and every distance, with forces inversely as theirsquares; and, moreover, the power of chemical affinity is not commensuratewith that of gravitation. One part, by weight, of hydrogen has agreater affinity, universally, for any other element than two hundred partsof gold. By what means then are cohesion, chemical affinity, and gravitationinseparably associated in all the ponderable elements of matter ? Isit not fatal to the validity of the highly ingenious and interesting deductionsof Farraday, that they are thus shown tobe utterly incompetent toexplain the inseparable association of cohesion, chemical affinity, andinertia with gravitation, while the existence of a vacuity between Newtonianatoms, mainly relied upon as the basis of an argument against theirexistence, is shown to be inconsistent both with the ingenious speculationwhich has called forth these remarks, and those Herculean '' researches"