UPON ELECTRICAL STIMULI GENERALLY 5T 



Theories of that kind coming as they do from highly 

 educated men, fill me with astonishment. Animals and 

 plants possess considerable electrostatic capacity— that of 

 man is equivalent to about fifteen miles of Atlantic cable— 

 and by reason of that capacity are able to absorb energy 

 of an electrical nature. But the plant is sustained and 

 stimulated into growth by energy imparted to it by earth 

 and air, while animals generate it by the act of breathing. 

 It is not possible to kill or seriously impair the health of 

 any animal or plant by placing it for long periods in contact 

 with an "earth" of negligible resistance. That would 

 effectually cut all external sources of energy, other than air. 



The argument therefore resolves itself into this : " both 

 animals and plants are dependent entirely upon air— because 

 we do not always have light— for their existence. That is, 

 to a certam extent, true because both animal and plant 

 require oxygen in a diluted form for the generation of vital 

 forces but to assume that neither are able to generate as well 

 as to store motive power is to negative, among other things, 

 the theory of intra-cellular generation, to suppose that 

 iron fills no purpose in the animal and plant body and that 

 oxygen is not in any way associated with electrical 

 phenomena. 



Air is a great factor in vegetable life, quite apart from 

 oxygen, when it is in combination with light. An onion, 

 for example, is a self-contained electrical cell. It may be 

 short circuited through a very low resistance for many 

 months without showing any sign of polarisation or loss of 

 current. When earthed in vacuo it, as I have before 

 remarked, soon becomes exhausted but will revive almost 

 at once if placed in a good light in the open air ; otherwise 

 the process of recovery is slow. That goes to show that 

 energy of an electrical nature is derivable from air. But a 

 single fact does not necessarily establish a hypothesis, and 

 to postulate that man is an accumulator dependent for his 

 energy upon some external, and occasionally irregular^ 

 source of supply is hardly reasonable. 



