That light and heat are both vibrations of the ethereal medium is not the less true on account of the rays of heat being unseen, for the condition of visibility or invisibility may only depend upon the construction of our eyes, and not upon the nature of the motion which produces these sensations in us. The sense of seeing may be confined within certain limits. The chemical rays beyond the violet end of the spectrum may be too rapid, or not sufficiently excursive, in their vibrations, to be visible to the human eye; and the calorific rays beyond the other end of the spectrum may not be sufficiently rapid, or too extensive, in their undulations, to affect our optic nerves, though both may be visible to certain animals or insects. We are altogether ignorant of the perceptions which direct the carrier-pigeon to his home, or of those in the antennæ of insects which warn them of the approach of danger; nor can we understand the telescopic vision which directs the vulture to his prey before he himself is visible even as a speck in the heavens. So, likewise, beings may exist on earth, in the air, or in the waters, which hear sounds our ears are incapable of hearing, and which see rays of light and heat of which we are unconscious. Our perceptions and faculties are limited to a very small portion of that immense chain of existence which extends from the Creator to evanescence. The identity of action under similar circumstances is one of the strongest arguments in favour of the common nature of the chemical, visible, and calorific rays. They are all capable of reflection from polished surfaces, of refraction through diaphanous substances, of polarization by reflection and by doubly refracting crystals; their velocity is prodigious; they may be concentrated and dispersed by convex and concave mirrors; they pass with equal facility through rock-salt and are capable of radiation; and they are subject to the same law of interference with those of light: hence there can be no doubt that the whole assemblage of rays visible and invisible which constitute a solar beam are propagated by the undulations of the ethereal medium, and consequently as motions they come under the same laws of analysis.