A VAST ELECTRIC ORGANISM 23 



meteors are drawn by electric energy and woven 

 by magnetic force or induced electric currents into 

 orderly layers of crystalline rock and varied metals, 

 forming a vast thermopile, galvanic battery, work- 

 ing magnet, and electric dynamo all combined. 

 By the law of electric attraction all matter would 

 tend toward a common center, and in that common 

 center would be found the vast central magnet-sun, 

 sphere and dynamo many times larger and more 

 powerful than all the others combined. As each 

 grew in size their electric potentiality would be 

 increased, their electric and magnetic attractions 

 multiplied, and their revolution upon their axis 

 and their orbit motion would be accelerated to a 

 marvelous extent, giving them measureless force 

 and power. 



Herbert Spencer affirms that space is eternal and 

 has always existed. We will suppose the same of 

 matter in its elemental form, known as the atom, 

 and we will venture also to assert that force is a 

 substance like matter, but a thousand times more 

 refined and invisible than the atom, and we will 

 call it the electric ion, or electron. 



Thus we have three indestructible, invisible enti- 

 ties space, matter and force which have existed 

 eternally and which constitute the basic founda- 

 tion and fallow ground of primeval chaos, which 

 was the beginning of the universe. Then stars and 

 planets, suns and worlds were transparent ether, 

 as impalpable as the viewless air, and scattered as 

 star-dust in the measureless void of space along 

 the forgotten highways of the eternities. Silence 

 reigned profound in the pulseless regions of the air 

 where, motionless and dumb, the atoms hung in dark 



