It is said that an Italian physicist wrote in 1843: "Light is merely a series of colorific indications, sensible to the organs of light, or vice versa; the radiations of obscure heat are veritable invisible radiations of light." This Langley, by his elaborate researches, more refined and complex than all preceding ones, proved to be true. Since so orthodox a scientist as Langley has proven there is but one energy, the other scientists may stumble over it awhile and then accept it, because he is high authority.
Sir Oliver Lodge, in the "Electrical World," of February 21st, 1903, sustains the electrical theory strongly. He says: "All matter is electrical in its nature. The difference between one kind of matter and another lies in the physical and chemical properties of the atoms; but the difference between the atoms is merely due to the difference of the electric grouping of the atoms."
He holds that the Thompson corpuscles are all electric. Thomson's theory is that negative electricity is matter. Lodge holds that all matter down to the ultimate corpuscle is electricity or electrical substance. Thus I am sustained by the highest most recent authority.
Prof. E. L. Larkin, of the California University, said recently: "The earth has a permanent charge of negative electricity, and the atmosphere is positive. The surface potential is therefore very near zero. This permits electro-magnetic waves from the sun to act with unabated energy." Prof. Lucien I. Blake of the Kansas University said in a recent lecture: "All atoms of matter are charged with electricity. All vital actions are always connected with electricity."
I could fill a volume with recent statements of scientists showing that electricity produces all the phenomena of nature, all of which they have learned in the last few years, while as a pioneer in this field of thought I have been trying to propagate these electrical theories for many years.
Every year new facts are discovered showing that electricity is the cosmic, evolving, ultimate and only force in nature and the universe is a vast electric machine or organism moved by electric currents of measureless force and power. The earth revolves around the sun, the sun gravitates around some siderial center in motion like itself, and myriads of suns and planets with their countless population move with many times the velocity of a cannon ball. Stars that seem tranquil and motionless in the heavens are projected through space with a velocity of one hundred to two hundred miles per second. The constituent atoms of our bodies move relatively with as much velocity as the stars in heaven. Motion-electric energy-reigns everywhere, forms everything, controls, handles and evolves all suns and planets, all physical life, substance and organisms in human experience and universal nature.
The electric rays of light from suns and stars of the most distant constellations dart their beams across the universe, and centuries after, the impulse of electric energy enters the human eye, and gives sense and vision to the soul. Thus the dynamic chains of electric light binds into living unity the realms of matter and mind, "through measureless amplitudes of space and time."
These electric currents are not only the source of all natural phenomena, but the sea of electro-magnetism from which they come is the reservoir of life, which stands back of all the myriad manifestations of physical existence, and is the great fountain of vitality from which all life must come.
What is electricity? Tesla says it is "invisible light," Atkins says it is "molecular motion," Fleming says it is "a spiral twist of the ether," but the best definition is given in the Scriptures where it says all things were made by the "word of His power." It is the word of creative power.
CHAPTER III ELECTRICAL CREATION, BRIEFLY STATED. IT SEEMS TO SOLVE THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE
Table of Contents As the nebular hypothesis and gravitation explain nothing and show neither the primary elements nor the primary energy of the universe, we should go to the dual forces of electricity which do. As we have learned little more than a name from either, I think it is time to try another hypothesis. Walking single file in dead men's shoes for two hundred years is quite long enough.
I am willing to submit the following hypothesis as my conception of electrical creation and the true theory of the universe.
First-Creation was wrought out by the agency of electrical forces, operating on invisible elementary matter, controlled by the intellectual impulse of an infinite power.
Second-These creative cosmic forces, by condensing the suns and planets into vast magnets revolving in a sea of electro-magnetic forces, evolved the marvelous machinery of the universe.
Third-This machinery of the universe became self-propelling and self-sustaining by reason of the laws of motion, growth and evolution impressed upon it, or by the joint sovereignty of two equal, correlative forces: magnetism, a form of electricity maintains the sovereignty of attraction over matter in body, while electricity, another phase of the same force, maintains the sovereignty of repulsion over matter in space.
Fourth-For these reasons electricity is a universal power joining together the two kingdoms of the heavens and the earth-of matter in body and matter in space. And these forces in their unity of harmonious work can suffer no disturbance equal "to the dust in the balance."
Fifth-These floods of electricity and magnetism affect the least and the greatest, "directly as to mass, and inversely to the square of the distance."
Sixth-The sun and planets are vast magnets because they are held in charge of electro-magnetic forces in an immense magnetic field. These forces are not from these bodies originally, but these bodies are from these forces; and these forces antedate all forms of visible matter.
Seventh-The primary state of matter is the diffused etheric, invisible state, and the building of matter into body is the work of these forces when in charge of matter under organic affinities. Magnetic lines of force fix centres and build around such centres by drawing elemental matter from the radiant sea of space by magnetic energy, into globular forms that become growing worlds, drawing their power and increase of form from the sea of invisible matter in which they are fixed by their axis and orbit lines of motion and force, constituting them working electro-magnets.
Eighth-These electro-magnetic forces are the eternal cosmic forces of perpetual motion, ever working by the law of action and reaction, attraction and repulsion, and evolving world forms and animal and vegetable forms.
Ninth-The sun having grown from the sea of invisible etheric and nebulous matter by reason of these wonderful electro-magnetic forces into an immense magnet, larger than all the lesser magnets or planets of the solar system combined, holds them in the magnetic field of his sovereign power, and is, through the flowing currents of electricity, the creating, governing force in the solar system.
Tenth-These same electric forces are condensed into smaller magnets and electric organisms or machines, which form electric centres and build up all tangible forms of matter-human, animal and vegetable. And all visible matter is but the outer shell and visible garment of these invisible forces.
Eleventh-Without the floods of electric substance or power that come to us in the electric currents of the sun that flow in currents of strength through our bodies as they propel the inflowing and outflowing floods of atomic elements of matter, that are laden with incoming supplies of daily life and outgoing wastes, by attraction and repulsion, assimilation of food, respiration and perspiration, our bodily forms would perish or be wholly unfit for the dwelling-place of our spirits.
Twelfth-Our five senses-seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling-that connect us with the world of matter are entirely dependent on electricity and the invisible etheric forms of matter that surround us everywhere and constitute the connecting ties, the invisible ligaments, that pervade and bind all forms of life in nature's wondrous harmony.
Thirteenth-The boundless fountain of infinite energy in atoms in body and atoms through measureless space are superior to any mere sun form or world form of visible expression of such energy. The floods of radiant electric energy that enwrap the sun and planets in orbital lines of omnipotent strength are to these bodies the everlasting fountains from which flow their upholding and evolving power and the conservation of force in their transforming energy.
Fourteenth-As all visible forms of matter are built from invisible elementary atoms, so the most efficient display of electric power finds its expression and source in the same elementary atoms. The electric power working in all atoms of matter gathered in planetary form, saturates such planetary bodies with electric energy, as the steel of the magnet is saturated with such forces, and reveals in the sun currents the source of all terrestrial power and organic life.
Fifteenth-The chemists claim to have discovered about seventy different elemental substances in matter, but they are not primary elementary substances; they are secondary, and caused by the marvelous electrical combinations of the two primary elements-atoms and electricity-and are what Herschel said they looked to be, "manufactured articles."
Sixteenth-The laws of magnetic attraction teach us that positive and negative polar forces, flowing oppositely between sun and earth, establish the bond of union between them, and the transmission of...
