THOUGHTS ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 8g 



in Weismann's learned book sufficient to make it clear that 

 the only satisfactory explanation of heredity, and other natural 

 phenomena, is that given in my theory of material motion as 

 developed in my treatise. 



Leakage of Life. The author is glad to receive evidence 

 that his theory is making headway in scientific circles. In 

 proof of which he gives an extract from the Daily Mirror 

 of 2oth September, 1909: "We are exhilarated by a dry 

 atmosphere; depressed by a damp one," Dr. A. F. King writes 

 in the current number of the Popular Science Monthly, 

 "because the moist air, being a conductor, carries off some 

 of our electricity to the earth, while dry air is a more com- 

 plete insulator, and prevents this leakage." 



An eminent medical scientist, interviewed by the Daily 

 Mirror, bore out this statement, and explained that it was 

 due to the fact that man was a complicated machine run by 

 electricity. 



"The human body," he said, "is built up of innumerable 

 cells. Each of those cells has life, and is in itself a tiny 

 electric battery operated by weak chemical reactions. 



" Life can therefore be defined medically as the electrical 

 outcome of weak chemical interchanges conducted in the body 

 by the circulation of the blood, which carries oxygen to pro- 

 duce these electrical changes. 



"This is true, because if you stop the supply of oxygen 

 you stop these chemical reactions, the electrical output of the 

 cells ceases, and death is instantaneous. 



" Therefore, the electrical forces of the cells are an essential 

 phenomenon of the orderly life of the whole body, and they 

 supply energy to the brain and nervous system. 



"Enveloping all these billions of cells is the skin, and the 

 resistance of the *skin to the electric current is enormous. 

 * And the dry air in which it is enveloped on a dry day. 



