THE ELECTRIC ELEMENT. 91 



of radiations.' Conceptions like these give fair founda- 

 tion to the hypothesis I am seeking to enforce. 



But this hypothesis justifiably extends to more 

 remote distances in space. If there be, as we have 

 authority for believing, direct magnetic or electrical 

 connexion between the sun and earth, a material 

 medium must exist furnishing this connexion. Why 

 may we not suppose the electric element itself to 

 be this medium, occupying space under the con- 

 ditions we attach to the name of ether, and fulfil- 

 ling by its endowments those wonderful functions in 

 the natural world which we invoke the conception of 

 ether to illustrate and explain ? Why suppose another 

 and distinct element pervading space, when we have 

 one familiar to us in a thousand experiments, so pro- 

 portioned that none other can be conceived equally 

 capable of expounding the phenomena ? In the sup- 

 position that ether itself is the electric element thus 

 diffused throughout our solar system and, upon the 

 theory of light, to stellar space beyond we obtain 

 presumptions extending to many of the great cosmical 

 problems on which science is now engaged. 



The velocity of the electric current through certain 

 conductors, in its close approximation to that of the 

 ether waves of light, may fairly be admitted into the 

 argument for identity. All such facts give evidence of 

 the astonishing subtlety and mobility of the element thus 

 propertied, and of its capacity to assume very different 

 physical conditions, especially when brought into con- 

 junction with the more ponderable forms of matter. 



The meteorological relations of electricity in nowise 

 contradict our hypothesis. That the ethereal medium 



