CHAPTER XV. 

 ELECTRIC VIEW OF MATTER. 



WHAT has been proved, by the combination of experi- 

 ment and theory now summarised, is that the most 

 important variety of rapidly flying corpuscle the 

 cathode rays in a Crookes tube, the /3 rays emitted 

 by radium and other radio-active substances, the 

 particles thrown off by most clean surfaces when 

 negatively charged and stimulated by ultra-violet light, 

 the carriers of jbhe negative discharge from incandescent 

 bodies, and likewise the revolving or vibrating portion 

 of an atom to which the emission of radiation or 

 ethereal wave-motion is due that these are all of an 

 identical nature and all possess an inertia of purely 

 electromagnetic character ; that is to say that they 

 are all pure electrons without any admixture of 

 ordinary or unexplained matter, that they are 

 simply electrical charges without any material or 

 non- electrical nucleus. 



We thus reach the very important deduction that 

 negative electricity can exist apart from matter in 

 little isolated identical portions, each of exceedingly 

 minute known size, known charge, and known inertia ; 

 and that the laws of mechanics, applied to such 

 particles in given fields of electric and magnetic force, 

 should carry us on towards explaining the fun da- 



