A VAST ELECTRIC ORGANISM 17 



Aside from the theory of magnets, this is not far 

 from Lockyer and Proctor's theory of the stellar 

 formation. Norman Lockyer says : "The stellar con- 

 stitution may be explained by supposing it to arise 

 from cool meteoric swarms represented by the neb- 

 ulas and the rise of temperature due to contrac- 

 tion toward a centre." And he adds : "In the stars 

 we have celestial furnaces the heat of which trans- 

 cends that of our most powerful electric sparks." 

 In this heat theory I think he is radically wrong. 

 The rise of temperature on the sun and earth, I 

 contend, is not from contraction, which is both in- 

 sufficient and too irregular to be considered. But 

 it did arise from the growth in power and size of 

 the earth as a great magnet, so that as a great 

 arc dynamo it began to throb with electric energy, 

 and, by drawing to itself powerful currents from 

 space and from the sun, the central electric heart 

 of its organism, it began to generate heat and 

 light in its own environment, which in time be- 

 came translucent to the sun's rays, and, instead of 

 the sun and earth losing their light and heating 

 power, they are steadily increasing them. 



It is thus apparent that all light, heat, physical 

 organisms and vegetable and animal life are evolved 

 and exist only in the magnetic atmosphere of suns 

 and planets. 



The light we see does not come from the sun or 

 stars; it is generated in our own atmosphere. No 

 man ever saw the sun or stars; they see the rays 

 of light which photograph them in our atmosphere. 

 They see pictures of them at the end of the ray 

 emanating from them, but some of these rays have 

 been two hundred years in reaching us. 

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