and the whole
_feat_ is produced by the direction of his master.

Allow me to recal an idea we considered in a former lecture. I said no
action as such could be known distinct from the thing which acts; that
action as such is not perceptible, and that all things act, according to
the ability they possess. To illustrate this idea: Take a magnet and
lower it down over a piece of iron, till it attracts it to itself and
holds it suspended there. If you are not in possession of a magnet you
can make one at your pleasure, by the following process. Lay your knife
blade on a flat iron, or any hard, smooth surface; let another take the
old tongs or other iron which have stood erect for a considerable length
of time, and draw it upon the blade for a minute or more. A magnetic
power will be conveyed from the tongs to the blade sufficient to take up
a common needle. The tongs themselves may be manufactured into a most
perfect magnet. Now as the knife _holds_ the needle suspended beneath it
you perceive there must be an action, a power, and cause exerted beyond
our comprehension. Let the magnetic power be extracted from the blade,
and the needle will drop to the floor. A common unmagnetized blade will
not _raise_ and _hold_ a needle as this does. How those tongs come in
possession of such astonishing power; by what process it is there
retained; the power and means of transmission of a part of it to the
knife blade, and the reason of the phenomena you now behold--an
inanimate blade drawing to itself and there holding this needle
suspended--will probably long remain unknown to mortals. But that such
are the facts, incontestibly true, none will deny, for the evidence is
before us. Now fix your attention on that needle. There is an active and
_acting_ principle in that as well as in the magnetized blade; for the
blade will not attract a splinter of wood, of whalebone, or piece of
glass, tho equal in size and weight. It will have no operation on them.
Then it is by a sort of mutual affinity, a reciprocity of attachment,
between the blade and needle, that this phenomena is produced.

To apply this illustration you have only to reverse the case--turn the
knife and needle over--and see all things attracted to the earth by the
law of gravitation, a principle abiding in all matter. All that renders
the exhibition of the magnet curious or wonderful is that it is an
uncommon condition of things, an apparent counteraction of the regular
laws o