146 Life and Matter chap.vhi. 



only vague similarities in the phenomena of 

 attraction and repulsion aroused attention. 

 But directly electricity was set in motion, 

 constituting what is called an electric 

 current, magnetic lines of force instantly 

 sprang into being, without the presence 

 of any steel or iron ; and in twenty years 

 they were recognised. These electrically 

 generated lines of force are similar to those 

 previously known, but they need no matter 

 to sustain them. They need matter to 

 display them, but they themselves exist 

 equally well in perfect vacuum. 



How did they manage to spring into 

 being ? Can it be said that they too had 

 existed previously in some dormant condition 

 in the ether of space ? That they too were 

 closed loops opened out, and their existence 

 thus displayed, by the electric current ? 



That is an assertion which might reason- 

 ably be made : it is not the only way 

 of regarding the matter, however, and the 

 mode in which a magnetic field originates 

 round the path of a moving charge being 



