e
and confirm each several hypothesis which has been advanced. There can
be little doubt, therefore, that the sun is an electrified body, and it
is for us now to carry out this fact to its logical and philosophical
conclusion, by applying all the truths which circle round it to the
solar system, when we shall find greater confirmation of the statement
just advanced than any we have yet adduced.

According to Professor Young of America, the sun is not only an
electrified body, but is also the abode of living and sentient beings.
This astronomer has suggested that the sun is the centre of electric
force, and that converging streams of Electricity are ever flowing to it
as a centre; but on meeting with the atmosphere they give rise to
brilliant discharges, which thus gives the appearance of a solid
incandescent body.

Now, whether this hypothesis is correct or not, it is absolutely
certain that the sun is an electrified body, as it gives rise to
electro-magnetic waves in the Aether, as philosophically proved by
direct experiments.

[Footnote 22: _Aether and Matter_, p. 8.]

[Footnote 23: _Ibid._, p. 64.]

[Footnote 24: _Magnetism and Electricity_, by C. Maxwell, Art. 782.]

ART. 80. _Aether and Electric Fields._--Before proceeding to apply some
of the facts of Electricity to the solar system, let us find out what is
meant by an Electric Field. An electric field is to an electrified body,
what a thermal or heat field is to a heated body, or a luminous or
lighted field is to a luminous body. If a lamp, for example, be lighted,
its light waves spread out on every side, and extend for a considerable
distance unless impeded by such obstacles as the wall of a room.

The extent to which the light waves reach and flow might well be called
the lighted or luminous field, and in that field the effect of the
aetherial light waves would be manifested and seen.

Now, in a similar manner, when any body is electrified, the electric
waves spread out on every side of the electrified body, and the extent
to which the waves spread out form what is known as an electric field.

So that an electric field may be defined as any region or space in which
electric energy is manifested by means of the aetherial electric waves,
and across which induction may take place.

[Illustration: Fig: 9.]

Thus, for example, let _E_ be an electrified body (Fig. 9), then it will
generate electric waves which will speed from the body with a velocity