THE FOUNDATION OF EVOLUTION 



veniently be here regarded as equivalent to weight) 

 and inertia are properties of electricity. All matter, 

 in short, is an electrical phenomenon. 



Now we are in deep waters, and I am not sure 

 that contemporary physics, utterly remaking as it 

 is, can quite keep its head above them. But if 

 we admit that the electron is the unit of matter, and 

 that it is electrical, and then find evidence to show 

 that it is a "particle" of "negative electricity," 

 we can at any rate convince ourselves, even while 

 admitting our sore need of a brand-new vocabulary, 

 that the electron is really no more than a transient 

 expression of a relation. When a negative and a 

 positive charge of electricity I quite admit that 

 we hardly know what we are talking about have 

 met and "satisfied their affinity" for each other, 

 they each cease to be. There is no annihilation 

 of the something of which they are transient ex- 

 pressions, but there is annihilation of the tem- 

 porary relation which formerly was, and in virtue 

 of which they existed. Matter, then, is no more 

 than the transient expression of a transient electrical 

 relation. 



I have every sympathy with the reader who has 

 now come to the conclusion that modern physics, 

 if this be a sample of it, is hardly distinguishable 

 from metaphysics; but at least he will accept my 

 word that I am not aiming at a general befuddle- 

 ment, nor trying to refine matter into an abstrac- 

 tion, when I call it, in the most accurate language 

 at my command, an expression of a relation. I 

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