IDENTICAL CHANGES 



change in the duration of the life of atoms, seems 

 to be an unanswerable question, without an ade- 

 quate knowledge of the form of atoms. 



The telegraph wire is not a dead thing at any 

 time, for in it every particle is held to the other 

 by life, whether we call that life cohesion or any 

 other name. (Prop. XXV, B. 2.) When a tele- 

 graph message goes over the wire every part of 

 the wire must undergo a change. (Prop. XI, B. 

 1.) And at the sender's end something must go 

 into the wire and at the receiver's end something 

 must come out of the wire. And this something 

 does not consist in atoms of copper or iron, or any 

 other kind of atom, nor yet of any occult power. 

 In the wire every particle is interlocked. (Prop. 

 VI, B. 1.) And because the message requires time 

 for transmission, therefore, it is not a straight 

 column of Primary Spheres of void matter which 

 transmits the message. For a straight column of 

 P. S. must act as one whole, instantaneously. 



Then since the material flowing into the wire 

 is evidently void matter, that matter must either 

 go around the protruding parts of atoms in the 

 wire, or else play a part in the renewal of the 

 atoms in the process of life; and because insula- 

 tion adds greatly to the efficiency of the wire, it 

 is evident that the latter is the case. 



The electricity contained in the wire is quickly 

 exhausted; if a large storage battery were cir- 

 cuited in, the telegraph wire would not act. But 

 the wire comprising the whole line would contain 

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