stitutes what is vulgarly called matter. We cannot take up a book on physics (written with true scientific knowledge) in which we do not find evidence that its author acknowledges that there is, correctly speaking, but one force in nature. Radcliife tells us that what is called electricity is only a one-sided aspect of a law which, when fully revealed, will be found to rule over organic as well as inorganic nature,—a law to which the discoveries of science and the teachings of philosophy alike bear testimony,—a law which does not entomb life in matter, but which transfigures matter with a life which, when traced to its source, will prove only to be the effluence of the Divine life.
Macvicar teaches that the nearer we ascend to the fountain-head of being and of action, the more magical must everything inevitably become; for that fountain-head is pure volition. And pure volition, as a cause, is precisely what is meant by magic; for by magic is meant a mode of producing a phenomenon without mechanical appliances,—that is, without that seeming continuity of resisting parts and that leverage which satisfy our muscular sense and our imagination and bring the phenomenon into the category of what we call "the natural;" that is, the sphere of the elastic, the gravitating,—the sphere into which the vis inertiœ is alone admitted.
There is in Professor Crookes's "Genesis of the Elements" an hypothesis of great interest,—a projectment of philosophical truth which brings him nearer than any known living scientist to the ground held by Mr. Keely. Davy defines hypothesis as the scaffolding of science, useful to build up true knowledge, but capable of being put up or taken down at pleasure, without injuring the edifice of philosophy. Lockyer, as well as Crookes and Rucker, is also "quite warm," as the children would say of the one who approaches the hidden object in the game of "hide-and-seek." When we find men in different parts of the world constructing the same kind of scaffolding, we may feel fairly sure that they have an edifice to build. The scaffolding may prove to be insecure, but it can be flung away and another constructed. It is the edifice that is all-important,—the philosophy, not the hypotheses. The science of learning, says Lesley, and the science of knowledge are not quite identical; and learning has too often, in the case of individuals, overwhelmed and smothered to death knowledge. It is a familiar fact that great discoveries come at long intervals, brought by specially-commissioned and highly-endowed messengers; while a perpetual procession of humble servants of nature arrive with gifts of lesser moment, but equally genuine, curious, and interesting novelties. From what unknown land does all this wealth of information come? who are these bearers of it? and who intrusted each with his particular
