The Press.
London, England, 1855-09-15 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

peering to attach to it more importance than they woull
have done to any mere accident of form or colour. They
had no idea that they had thus actually touched the first
link in a long chain of discoveries. They failed to recog•
nise the importance of an observation from which the
moderns have drawn a whole world of facts, as curious by
their singular character, as they are important in the results
which have been deduced from them. They have been
called electric phenomena, from the word ( /carol, by which
the Greeks designated amber.
- - •

On the attractive power of :metals, it is re-
marked :

Very numerous examples have proved that persons are
never struck by lightning without its attacking more par-
ticularly portions of metal woni by them. it may, then,
be admitted that the danger of being struck is sensibly
increased by metals attached to the person. Every one
will be ready to admit this, where the metallic masses are
at all considerable; I may mention that on the 21st of
July, 1819, lightning fell on the prison of Biberach, in
Swabia ; and that, in the great hall, amidst twenty prisoners,
the one struck was the condemned chief of a baud of
robbers, who was chained by the waist.

In some instances lightning has entirely
consumed metals with which it came in con-
tact:—

The following fact, reported by Constantini in. 1749, is
still more directly to the purpose.
A lady was putting out her hand to close a window during
a thunderstorm, the lightning darted, and the gold brace-
let which she wore disappeared altogether, so that no ves-
tige of it was found. She herself received only some very
slight hurts.
Without these preliminary remarksimy readers might
have been surprised at my introducing here the explanation
given by the celebrated traveller lirydone, of an accident
which happened to a lady of his acquaintance, Mrs.
Douglas.
She was looking out of her window during a thunder-
storm, when a flash of lightning reduced her bonnet to
ashes, without doing any other injury whatsoever. Mr.
Brydone considered that the lightning had been attracted
by the thin metallic wire supporting the front of the bonnet.
Some curious cases are mentioned from which
it seems probable that men resist the effects
of lightning better than horses and dogs :

On the 12th of April, 1781, Messrs. d'Aussac,de Gautran,
and de Lavallongue, were struck by lightning near
Castres. The three horses on which those gentlemen rode
were killed on the spot. Only one of the riders, M.
d'Aussac, perished.
In June 1826, near Worcester, a mare led by a boy was
killed by lightning; the boy was unhurt.
In June 1810, Mr. Cowens was in a room with his dog
by his side, when lightning entered the room ; the dog
only was killed, Mr. Cowens barely felt. the shock.
On the 11th of July, 1819, as already related, lightning
killed nine persons out of the congregration assembled at
Divine service in the Church at Chateau.Neufles•Moutiers ;
but it was not added that several dogs which were in the
church were all killed without exception. These animals
were all found dead in the attitudes in which they were
before the stroke.

In one of his eloquent books Mr. Ruskin
has a striking passage on the sublime impres-
sion of the Divine Power communicated
to the mind of men by storms with com-
paratively little fatal consequence. This
thought may be illustrated by M. Arago's
researches. It is astonishing that so little
damage should be done considering the
amount of electric matter discharged by the
clouds during a thunderstorm. By experi-
ments made on the Valentino Palace at Turin,
it appears that the roof of this building alone,
by means of its various conductors, took from
the clouds each hour as much lightning matter
as would suffice to kill three thousand
persons.

One of the most important chapters in the
volume is that on the efficacy of lightning-
conductors. The remarkable exemption of
the Temple at Jerusalem from damage by
lightning is curiously explained:—

We do not learn, either from the Bible or from Josephus,
that the Temple at Jerusalem was ever struck by lightning
during an interval of more than a thousand years—from
the time of Soloman to the year 70,—although from its
situation it was completely exposed to the very frequent
and violent thunderstorms of Palestine. Remembering the
care with which ancient nations recorded strokes of light-
ning by which any degree of injury was done,—how often,
for example, the Roman Annals mention the Capitol and
other public buildings being struck by lightning,—it ap-
pears natural to infer from this silence, with the
Orientalist Michaelis, that the Temple did not receive any
severe stroke of lightning in the course of ten centuries.
The probability of the justness of this inference is much
strengthened by the circumstance that the Temple, being
overlaid internally and externally with wood, would cer-
tainly have caught fire if struck by a violent thunderbolt.
Supposing the fact to be thus well established, we have
next, with Michaelis and Lichtenberg, to seek a cause, and
we find a very simple one.
By a fortuitous circumstance the Temple was armed with
lightning-conductors quite similar to those which we now
employ, and which we owe to Franklin's discovery.
The roof, constructed in what we now call the Italian
manner, and covered with beards of cedar having a thick

SATURDAY,

coating of gold, was garnished from end to end with long,
pointed, and gilt-iron or steel lances, which Josephus said
were intended to prevent birds from resting on the roof
and soiling it. The walls also were overlaid throughout
their extent with wood thickly gilt. Lastly, there were in
the courts of the Temple cisterns into which the rain from
the roof was conducted by metallic pipes. We have hero
both the lightning-rods and a supply of means of conduc•
tion so abundant, that Litchenberg is quite right in saying
that many of our present apparatuses are far from offering
in their construction so satisfactory a combination of ch•
cumstances. _ _ . . _

The conclusion at which I arrive is, that the long immu-
nity enjoyed by the Temple of Jerusalem presents the
most manifest proof of the efficacy of lightning-conductors.
Numerous details are given to show the
efficacy of ordinary lightning-conductors in
preserving buildings from injury during
storms. the conductors should be pointed,
as the electric fluid is thus more easily
attracted.

The whole phenomena of thunderstorms
are so copiously treated by the author, and so
fully illustrated by instances, that the essay is
not only instructive in a high degree, but
extremely amusing. Arago's application of
Mr. Wheatstone's ingenious rotatory appa•
ratus for determining the duration of the
electric spark, to show how brief is the dura-
tion of a lightning flash, is an example of that
adaptative quality of his mind which we have
indicated above. The result is shortly
stated :

We shall be keeping far within the conclusion which
this experiment would authorise when we content our-
selves with saying that the most brilliant and extensive
flashes of lightning of the first and second class, even those
which appear to embrace the whole extent of the visible
horizon, have not a duration equal to the thousandth part of
a second of time.

For the means by which this result is
arrived at, without the possibility of error, we
must refer to the volume itself. The ninth
chapter—pages 4] to 48—is one of the most
lucid and pleasing descriptions of a scientific
experiment we ever met with. Mr. Wheat-
stone has, however, gone much farther, and
demonstrated that the electric spark of our
machines does not last the millionth part of a
second.

Arago's reputation is firmly fixed in Eng-
land, but his works are, with some excep-
tions, very little known, though emi-
nently deserving, from their copious matter
and clear style, of extensive popularity. The
series could not have opened with a more
attractive volume, nor have we anything bat
praise to bestow on the style in which it is
presented to us. The complete edition of the
works of Arago will be a most welcome ct,itri-
bution to our scientific literature.

SEPT. 15, 1855.

method, and with quite as much certainty, as
we arrive at a knowledge of external things.
The essay, however, is not of the character
of those masterpieces which seize on some
one leading idea, and firmly impress it on the
mind by different forms of argument and illus-
tration. It is often exceedingly loose and
diffuse in structure, and, though the maze of
the author maybe perfectly distinct in his own
mind (on this point, however, we have
doubts), he certainly has not the art to
render it comprehensible to a reader of ordi-
nary capacity.
An examination into the nature of self, it is
said, is the more necessary, as a man cannot,
without recognising some original principle of
movement or will in the life of himself, recog
nise a Superior Will in the life of the world.
This argument is adopted to meet the objec-
tions of some sceptical writers. But it
appears to us very detrimental to the essay
of Mr. Thompson that it is throughout of a
controversial nature, and that we are obliged
to munch his natural theology sandwich
fashion, the arguments of sceptical thinkers
lying between the author's slices of reasoning,
and imparting a bitter, obnoxious flavour to
the whole. We venture to lay it down as a
principle fo; all essayists, that if they wish
their works to be read tkey should avoid con
troversy, and be content with the distinct
expression of their own thoughts. The
greater part of this work is made up of
reference to the metaphysical systems of
writers, which, if deserving of notice at all,
would each require a separate treatise.
Having laid it down as a principle that an
examination into human consciousness must
precede any attempt to establish the existence
of Deity, Mr. Thompson proceeds to review
briefly the metaphysical systems of Locke,
Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and
others, his conclusion from the history of mo
dern German metaphysics being that " nihilism
—" no world, no self, no God—is the only possi-
" ble philosophy, unless a safe and sure pas-
" sage be found from thought to being, from
" subjective to objective, from phenomena to
" reality, from the internal mind to the exter-
" nal world."

To find this " safe and sure passage " he
institutes an inquiry into the elementary
principles of our knowledge, and explains the
faculties of the mind. His view of its origi
nal constitution is ingenious :

It would seem to resemble, not so much the manufac•
tured paper, as the pulp of which it is to consist; this,
however, not lying in a shapeless mass, but spread out in
a wonderful machine, which proceeds at once to roll the
sheet and to impress upon it indelible characters. To
complete the comparison, we may imagine the pulp and
the machine to possess, each of them, certain chemical
properties, or, through the agency of a Wise Designer, to
be imprinted with certain chemical substances which have
an affinity for one another.—i.

The question is then naturally suggested,
Who prepared this pulp? The question may
be evaded by total scepticism; and hence
(i. 80) the author is led to an examination of
different systems of existence and different
systems of unbelief. Persons who desire to
penetrate the subtlest depths of metaphysical
scepticism will find a copious account of
" speculative theories of existence" in the
chapters ranging from 81 to 203 of vol. i.

Mr. Thompson next passes to the direct
evidences of natural theism. We could not,
he argues, have received such an absolute
assurance of the being of God as would have
obviated all doubt on the subject without
impairing the freedom of the mind. He
writes :

An original conviction of this truth [the being of Godl
which should be absolutely beyond question, can scarcely
be conceived as within the bounds of possibility. Suppose
the demand of extreme scepticism to have been fulfilled.
Suppose the great truth had been written upon the sky, or
impressed by an irresistible instinct of nature upon the
minds of all ; suppose an overpowering influence from
God himself had compelled us to the acknowledgment that
lie exists, yet we should not have been quite debarred
from questioning the origin of this influence ; and, if we
had, the inability to ask questions would not have pre-
chided the possibility of error. The atheist himself would
scarcely desire an innate compulsory belief which stifled
his darling faculty of scepticism. He would not choose to
resign the privilege of asking why he must believe. And
yet the question why, in such a case, must extend within
the depths of being. He could not know why, without
seeing whence and how the assurance arises in his mind ;
and to search the origin of an innate assurance is little less
than to know why and how he exists at all.—i. 208,209.