cause disintegration, decomposition, and
motion. Hence we deduce the law that, A new
attraction can destroy a former attraction.
Verily, matter conducts itself, in this respect,
very like creatures that boast of possessing
a mind and passions. The law may be
enunciated in a different formula, to the effect
that, attraction acting on attracted matter is
the source of all force, and that, therefore,
every physical force has a monogenetic origin,
and, when generated, a truly equivalent
power. For a study of the effect of a new
attraction acting upon attracted matter, the
voltaic battery stands forth pre-eminently as
an instrument well calculated to exemplify
the phenomenon.

The cause of all voltaic phenomena is
referable to a new attraction; when this is
opposed by obstacles, tension is manifested.
Tension, to use a figurative expression, has a
desire for action ungratified: and thus, as
soon as the tension is increased, or the
obstacles are diminished, action results, and
disintegration, decomposition, or motion
occurs. In the case when the electrical machine
is employed, the destruction of the old attractions
is frequently accompanied by light,
heat, and sound. From the above lofty topics
to descend to common life—is it a wicked
joke to draw the parallel, that when, instead
of electrical machines, men and women are
concerned, the destruction of old attractions
is likewise often accompanied by the flashing
of angry glances, the heat of passion, the
noise of disputation, and the motion of flight?
To return: these scientific views lead the
mind to suppose that electricity is not a
material essence, an imponderable fluid, a
spirit attached to matter, to which the effects
witnessed are due; but that the phenomena
of electricity are entirely owing to the action
of a new attraction upon matter which has
been aggregated or composed by the force of
former attractions. By frictional electricity
we are able to trace how repulsion is a
phenomenon of attraction, and not an inherent
power of matter. Two balls suspended close
together, when similarly electrified, appear to
repel each other; but in reality they are
attracted to surrounding objects.

The resistance of matter under attraction
to a new attraction, leads to the production
of various phenomena. Under certain
circumstances, that which we call heat is
evinced. For heat, it is necessary that a
resistance to the new attraction should be
afforded by the pre-existing attraction. In
the voltaic circuit, if any part is contracted,
heat is manifested, and in this way water
may be boiled, or platinum (one of the most
infusible of substances) may be made to melt
like wax. Mechanical force causes heat,
when applied to solid bodies; and whenever
attraction acts with sufficient energy upon
attracted matter, heat results. Where we
require intense heat, we must employ an
intense new attraction on an intense aggregation,
and hence, every practical man uses
light or strong coke according to the intensity
of the heat he requires. Whilst heat
exists, the new attraction is merely attempting
to destroy other attractions; and the
force may be transferred to any other body.
It may be transferred by conduction, that is,
through bodies in contact; or by radiation,
that is, to bodies at a distance. In every
case where heat ceases, either the new
attraction ceases to exert itself, or the former
attraction is destroyed, and disintegration,
decomposition, or motion is the result.

It is a consequence of the monogenesis of
physical forces, that each should possess
within itself the power of a new attraction,
which, according to the amount of the initial
change, can produce either an equivalent or
a relational amount of any other force.
Therefore, as has been already stated,
electricity may produce light, heat, or motion.
It has been shown by experiment that polarised
light is sensibly affected by magnetism.
Motion may produce heat, light, electricity;
light may produce electricity; motion, heat;
heat may produce motion, electricity, light;
and so we may ring the changes of the
convertibility of physical forces without end.
This doctrine has the merit of discarding the
notion of ethers, essences, imponderables, or
of a plurality of forces being attached to
matter, and places such vague assumptions
amongst the mental creations of philosophers
rather than the realities of nature.

That the convertibility is possible, may be
shown by instances easy to verify. Not only
may motion be transformed into heat, as
every-day experience teaches; Beaumont and
Mayer, taking advantage of the circumstance,
known from the remotest ages, that heat is
always developed by friction, make a quantity
of water boil in less than an hour and a-half,
by the continued revolution of a slightly
conical iron rod covered with hemp throughout
its whole length, inside a copper case,
against the sides of which it exerts a very
considerable friction. The rotatory motion
is simply produced by a handle, which sets
the hemp-clad rod in motion by means of
a toothed wheel. A couple of men are able
to cause the rod to revolve rapidly. The
machine is intended to make soup for
soldiers. With a sufficient quantity of biscuit
and preserved meat, these two men are able
to make enough good hot soup for twenty of
their comrades in an hour and a half, without
the help of a spark of fire. This exploit,
although amusing, on account of its novelty,
is not really so great a feat as the rubbing,
not striking, a light, by savages, by a leger-
demain performed with two or three dry
sticks.

Nothing will better serve to give a
summary view of the mutual and reciprocal
concatination of the forces of nature, than to
insist on the facts that motion produces heat
when any two bodies whatsoever are rubbed