THE ELECTRIC ELEMENT. 93 



The phenomena of electricity in their largest scope 

 (and especially those of evolution, conduction, and ac- 

 cumulation) give reason to believe that a material element 

 is concerned in producing them. Can we conceive other 

 element better fitted to fulfil the conditions required 

 than the ether of space, from its admitted properties 

 as the transmitting medium of light and heat from its 

 pervading as such all grosser forms of matter and 

 from the strong presumption that its property may or 

 must be altered by the various conditions of the matter 

 it pervades? 



This is the outline of the argument. To these 

 points, and to the others dwelt upon in the paper, must 

 be appended the remark, needing to be kept in mind, 

 that however unable upon this hypothesis to solve the 

 most perplexing of problems of electricity and magnet- 

 ism, the same objection exists, in at least equal degree, 

 to the hypothesis of any other special element as con- 

 cerned in these phenomena. 



Note added in 1873. 



See Edlings remarkable paper (translated in ' Philo- 

 sophical Magazine,' August 1872, on Electricity as a 

 Function of Ether, indicating this hypothesis (alge- 

 braically as well as otherwise) in its application to the 

 most difficult problems of electricity especially. See 

 also Clarke Maxwells Lecture at the Royal Institution 

 (February 21, 1873), and the report of it in 'Nature/ 

 February 29, and March 6, 1873, particularly the latter, 

 in relation to Faraday's 'great discovery of the electric 

 magnetic rotation of light.' 



