CHAPTER XIII. 

 JUSTIFICATION FOE ELECTRIC THEOEY OF INERTIA, 



BUT first we must ask, what justification is there 

 for the view that each of the isolated corpuscles, on 

 which measurements have been made, is a purely 

 electrical corpuscle or electron without material 

 nucleus, all of whose properties are to be explained 

 in accordance with purely electric and magnetic 

 laws ? Then we may proceed to discuss the further 

 extraordinarily far-reaching hypothesis first tenta- 

 tively put forward by Larmor in 1894, Phil. Trans., 

 vol. 185A, p. 813, with mechanical illustration of a 

 purely ethereal structure for such an electron that 

 the electrons constitute matter, that atoms of matter 

 are composed of electric charges, that the funda- 

 mental inertia-property of matter is identical with 

 self-induction. 



There is the reasonable philosophical objection to 

 postulating two methods of explaining one thing. If 

 inertia can be explained electrically, from the pheno- 

 mena of charges in motion, it seems needless to 

 require another distinct cause for it also. But this 

 is not all that can be said ; it is quite possible that 

 direct experimental proof will be forthcoming before 

 long. One method suggested by Professor J. J. 

 Thomson, for examining the nature of the corpuscles, 



L.E. 



