viii PREFACE 



structure that electrical action was precedent to chemical 

 change. If not, if, on the contrary, the body consisted of 

 a congeries of chemical laboratories, with only an oc- 

 casional suggestion of an electrical circuit, then I was 

 self-deceived. 



To this day we electricians do not know if in a galvanic 

 cell electrical begets chemical action or vice versa. But in 

 the form and appearance of a galvanic cell there is nothing 

 to guide us to definite opinion, much less to afford con- 

 clusive proof. What is electricity ? There are the one- 

 fluid and two-fluid theories. Dr. Le Bon has found that 

 the particles emitted from an electrified point are identical 

 with those of radium ; carbon when suitably treated will 

 give off a form of energy resembling electricity but which 

 can be shown to be some other element if electricity is an 

 element. We talk glibly of ions and electrons although 

 we know very little about them and are constantly 

 advancing new theories as if they were laws, and endeavour- 

 ing, and failing, to make results agree with them. There 

 is only one law, and upon that law all creation is founded ; 

 one law for the living and a modification of it for the dead. 

 There are, of course, differences of structure and perfection 

 of structure, but the same law, as I hope to show in these 

 pages, governs without exception everything that lives 

 upon this earth, animal and vegetable alike. 



A. E. BAINES. 



London, 1918. 



