taught Christian Thomasius, is a spirit: and
he defined its sex; it is a female spirit—
light is its mate, the male.  If light be not
the male, and air the female spirit, what is
air?—and here I will repeat Christian
Thomasius his argument for the convincing of
all doubtful minds.  If air be not a spirit, then
of course it is a body: now, says Thomasius,
it is not a light body because its nature is
without light; it is not a dark body because
it casts no shadow, and can be seen into. It
is not transparent, for we see not to the end of
it or through it, as in the case of water and
glass. It is not a body; therefore, according
to the showing of Thomasius, the air is
a spirit, and its forces are impalpable,
unearthly.

To increase our notion of the power of the
enemy with whom it is our duty to
contend, let us look at him from another point
of view.  Air never was subdued by any
human prince; and because nobody can
subdue it, the law by a fiction allows any
one to master it who can.  It is made common
in law, or, as the old jurists phrase it,
it is put among the res communes quoad usum
juridicum. Gryphiander did indeed consider
air to be a part of the regalia, or rights and
possessions of the king, because it was not
allowed in his country and time for any man
to erect windmills without royal licence; the
same was the case with water mills; and so
there were said to be vested in royalty the
rights of wind and water. Mascard (de
probat. Concl.) differed from this argument,
but yet conceded to kings the dominium
aeris, the power over air, because, in exercise
of his right, he suspends thieves in mid
air upon gibbets; also, by the string put
about their throats, and pressing on their
wind-pipes, he deprives them of the use of
air, which he could not do if air were not his
to give or to withhold.  Nevertheless, the
wind blows as it listeth; and, in spite of
the arguments of a few scholiasts and book-
men, air is declared common in law, and to
build castles in it is not accounted trespass.
It is also open to a man, when he builds on a
piece of ground, to build into the whole
column of air that is above it; and as the
height of the atmosphere is about forty-five
miles, it will be seen that this privilege is
of considerable extent.  Nevertheless, no man
has succeeded in securing the possession of
such rights.  The rooms we build into the
air above our patch of soil are entered by the
air, and held by it in occupation even more
constant than our own.  We go out for
walks or upon business, leaving the house
empty; our enemy never quits its occupation
of a single room. If we encroach so far as to
raise a structure very many feet above the
soil from which we start, it will inevitably
happen that our enemy some day, venting
his anger thereupon, will tumble it about our
heads.  The air, therefore, is untamed, and
rides superior to the strongest of the princes
of the earth—how much more must it ride
superior to us poor work-a-day resisters of
its tyranny!

The Jews were happy, if it be true, as
I have seen stated in print, that there is no
word for air in the Hebrew language.  The
notion of air, it is said, though the word
appears now and then in our version by
a mistranslation, nowhere occurs in the Old
Testament.  If the Jews looked on the air
as nothing, they were happy fellows.  Are
there Hebrew words for draughts, for colds,
for rheumatism, for lumbago?  I suppose
not.  Is there a Hebrew root meaning
chimney-board or flannel jacket?  If the
patriarchs were not involved in contest with
the enemy who now besieges us relentlessly
in doors and out of doors, and if this fact be
clearly understood, there is an end for ever of
all marvel at the great age attained by
Methusaleh and his compatriots.

As for the other elements—of course I recognise
no more than four—they are all subject
to our tyrant.  Fire depends on air for its
existence; water must take to itself air if it
would preserve life in its subject community
of fishes. The fallow earth depends on air for
its fertility. As for animals, they all have
open gates established in the outside walls of
their bodies—call them nozzles or by what
other name you please—through which, on
peril of their lives, they are bound to allow
constant entrance and egress to the despot
air.  We cannot, therefore, altogether throw
the tyrant off, but we can wage a petty war
against him, and we will.

Why, for instance, is it sometimes hot and
sometimes cold?  Why are we persecuted by east
winds?  Why don't the air leave us in peace to
enjoy a pleasant even temperature?  Who is
to believe the doctors who assert that fluctuations
of temperature go far to promote the
bodily and mental health and vigour of a
man?  I take it that the human body is a
warm mass, commonly warmer than the air;
and I wish to know why this mass, which
ought to be warm and is meant to be warm,
should be blown upon and cooled, like porridge,
by any north wind that the air may please to
send to treat us roughly, or made unduiy hot
by any summer south wind that the same air
may delegate to come up and hold over us
oppressive sway?  Our warm bodies do indeed
resist the winds, and do preserve in all
seasons the same average of heat; but I am
scandalised at being told that even these our
bodies, like the outer air, play daily at see-
saw; and, that the rule which subjects miserable
men to shifting temperature, penetrates
even through the substance of their flesh.

Now, when a man's body is so delicately
organised, that its temperature all day long is
shifting to and fro in this tremulous way, I
do say that it is a very terrible thing to
consider how the external air blows hot or
cold, establishes simooms, typhoons, whirl-
winds, draughts, hurricanes, and smoky