o another, in copper, it is calculated, the electron
combines with an atom and is liberated again a hundred million times a
second. Even chemical action enters the sphere of explanation.

However these hypotheses may fare, the electron is a fact, and the atom
is very probably a more or less stable cluster of electrons. But when
we go further, and attempt to trace the evolution of the electron out
of ether, we enter a region of pure theory. Some of the experts conceive
the electron as a minute whirlpool or vortex in the ocean of ether;
some hold that it is a centre of strain in ether; some regard ether as
a densely packed mass of infinitely small grains, and think that the
positive and negative corpuscles, as they seem to us, are tiny areas
in which the granules are unequally distributed. Each theory has its
difficulties. We do not know the origin of the electron, because we do
not know the nature of ether. To some it is an elastic solid, quivering
in waves at every movement of the particles; to others it is a
continuous fluid, every cubic millimetre of which possesses "an energy
equivalent to the output of a million-horse-power station for 40.000,000
years" (Lodge); to others it is a close-packed granular mass with a
pressure of 10,000 tons per square centimetre. We must wait. It is
little over ten years since the vaults were opened and physicists began
to peer into the sub-material world. The lower, perhaps lowest, depth is
reserved for another generation.

But it may be said that the research of the last ten years has given
us a glimpse of the foundations of the universe. Every theory of the
electron assumes it to be some sort of nodule or disturbed area in the
ether. It is sometimes described as "a particle of negative electricity"
and associated with "a particle of positive electricity" in building up
the atom. The phrase is misleading for those who regard electricity as a
force or energy, and it gives rise to speculation as to whether "matter"
has not been resolved into "force." Force or energy is not conceived
by physicists as a substantial reality, like matter, but an abstract
expression of certain relations of matter or electrons.

In any case, the ether, whether solid or fluid or granular, remains the
fundamental reality. The universe does not float IN an ocean of ether:
it IS an ocean of ether. But countless myriads of minute disturbances
are found in this ocean, and set it quivering with the various pulses