82 THE ELECTKIC ELEMENT. 



checked at once by the question, ' What is it ? What 

 is electricity ? ' The problem is one beset with difficul- 

 ties, but with seductions also ; seeing the likelihood 

 that hereafter some conclusion will be reached closer 

 than any yet attained. I have long interested myself 

 in the speculation ; and with a growing persuasion 

 that if there be any distinct material element con- 

 cerned in, and producing, electric phenomena, the 

 ether, pervading all known space, is that best satisfy- 

 ing the conditions required. 



The assumption may seem a rash one, seeing the 

 vastness and complexity of these phenomena, and the 

 want of any direct evidence to justify what is assumed. 

 But it must be kept in mind that no other physical 

 theory has been brought to solve the problem, or tell 

 us what electricity really is. If anyone had title to 

 titter an opinion on this point it was Faraday. He 

 declares that ' of the intimate nature of electricity we 

 know nothing ; whether it is matter, force, vibration, 

 or what.' His description of it as ' an axis of power i 

 having contrary and equal forces in opposite directions/ 

 denotes particular phenomena, but not the power pro- 

 ducing them. 



In addressing myself to this question. I would first 

 seek to simplify it by limitation. Electric action, how- 

 ever manifested, must be either a special condition of 

 motion of the atoms of sensible matter, as we suppose 

 in the case of heat, or it must be due to some indi- 

 vidual element or agent, distinct from the matter, on 

 which and through which it acts, an agent we must 

 denote as itself material, seeing that we can in no way 



