manufacture it, finds nothing marvellous in its properties, because he
daily handles the matter that forms its composition. The American, to
whom this powder was a stranger, who had never beheld its operation,
looked upon it as a divine power, and its energies as supernatural. The
uninformed, who are ignorant of the true cause of THUNDER, contemplate
it as the instrument of divine vengeance. The experimental philosopher
considers it as the effect of the electric matter, which, nevertheless,
is itself a cause which he is very far from perfectly understanding.--It
required the keen, the penetrating mind of a FRANKLIN, to throw light on
the nature of this subtle fluid--to develop the means by which its
effects might be rendered harmless--to turn to useful purposes, a
phenomenon that made the ignorant tremble--that filled their minds with
terror, their hearts with dismay, as indicating the anger of the gods:
impressed with this idea, they prostrated themselves, they sacrificed to
JUPITER, to deprecate his wrath.

Be this as it may, whenever we see a cause act, we look upon its effect
as natural: when this cause becomes familiar to the sight, when we are
accustomed to it, we think we understand it, and its effects surprise us
no longer. Whenever any unusual effect is perceived, without our
discovering the cause, the mind sets to work, becomes uneasy; this
uneasiness increases in proportion to its extent: as soon as it is
believed to threaten our preservation, we become completely agitated; we
seek after the cause with an earnestness proportioned to our alarm; our
perplexity augments in a ratio equivalent to the persuasion we are
under: how essentially requisite it is, we should become acquainted with
the cause that has affected us in so lively a manner. As it frequently
happens that our senses can teach us nothing respecting this cause which
so deeply interests us--which we seek with so much ardour, we have
recourse to our imagination; this, disturbed with alarm, enervated by