Excerpt from Treatise on Electricity, Vol. 1 of 2: In Theory and Practice

That Mineralogy and Geology would in a great mea sure have found in it the explanation of the origin of their crystals and of their strata that Physiology would have deduced from it a more intimate knowledge of the forces that rule over animated matter, and the secret of acting on such matter almost as life acts? That Medicine would have discovered in it resources against maladies hitherto assumed to be incurable that the Metallurgic Arts would have found in it new processes for extracting, moulding, and applying metals that, finally, it would have furnished to Mechanics a force, as prompt as thought, equally independent of time and space, would have en abled intelligence to escape from its limited envelope, to dart at pleasure with the rapidity of lightning into the most distant regions.

Such, however, are the marvels that Electricity has accomplished in less than a century; such are the links that now unite it in an indissoluble manner with all the parts of the physical sciences. And hence the study of it has become indispensable to all who cultivate these sciences, to the chemist, as well as to the natural philosopher, to the geologist, as much as to the physiologist, to the engineer, as well as to the physician. All are compelled to meet Electricity in their path; all consequently have need of becoming familiarised with it. I have been induced to think that a work designed to satisfy a want which is universally felt, would be received with favour. The very abridged manner, and the unmethodical style in which Electricity is for the most part treated in the treatises on Physics is not at all calculated for attaining that end; and, on the other hand, the special works that are devoted to it.

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