The morning call., 1890-07-13
WHAT Is ELECTRICITY ?
Scientists Who Contend That
There Is No Such Thing.

tn EOPLE who have an idea that cleo
H@ tricity is an entity rather than
ES:S sorm of expression OF energy will be
interested in statement in regard to 1t
from n gentleman OF such high scientific at
tainments as Professor A. Z. Dolbear of
Tufts College. Professor Dolbear says that
in that interesting book on Modern Views
of Electricity" by Professor o. j. Lodge,
there is made the suggestive statement that,
after all the inquiries have been made as to
what is electricity. the answer may have to
be, there is no such thing The words
electric" and "electrifcatiOn" may be re-
tanned, he says, but the word electricity"
may have 10 so, simply because II does not
stand for reality.
1t may be difficult for one who looks at
the phenomena, rather than to the relations
involved in the phenomena, to Imagine that
electricity is not some sort OF an entity, and
may be described, if one knew how, as one
would describe any other something. 1t
would certainly be curious II 1t should turn
out that the reason no answer has been
forthcoming to the question, What is cleo
tricity? is that there is no suen thing and
the question is an improper one; as if one
should ask, What is odor, or brightness,
or zero?
Historically there are several parallel
cases. a hundred years or more ago heat
phenomena we're attributed 10 phlogiston
or caloric-each supposed to be AZ entity OF
some sort. The latter form is still retained
for convenience, but it has ceased to have
any significance as something that gives
origin TO heat phenomena. When 1t was
discovered that such phenomena were due
to atomic and molecular vibrations, or what
is now often called mode of notion,
both the above words ceased to have any
meaning; in other words, there was no such
thing as pLlOgistOn or calOrc.
lIrrhf n n n N
entity; now We know that light is a sensa-
ton, and properly does not exist independ
ent of the eye. What was treated as light
is now called radiant energy" or ether
waves" Though the term light is re-
tanned, it has lost the significance it had
when 1t was supposed to be created some
thing.
The Psychologists for a very long time ex-
planned the phen Omena exhibited by living
things, both vegetable and ANIMAL as due
to vital force"-somethng supposed TO be
utterly unlike and not necessarily related
10 the other forces in nature-a force that
could control the others in living organ
ization. Now that has been altogether
abandoned. No biologist of any repute
now believes in vital force, and the ques-
ton, What is life? which has batfied every
one in his attempt TO define 1t, now turns
out to be an improper question, as it is re-
dueible to complicated molecular notions
and not TO an entity.
AS magnetism is known to be due to the
position Of molecules, as chemiSm may be
explained as due to other pressure, it really
seems as if all along the line of knowledge
Of the physical universe what have been
called forces" as peculiar something's,
having individuality as matter has, have no
existence at all, and that matter and ether
and motions Of one sort or another are all
factors in phenomena. Lodges statement,
then, has degree of probability added to
it by the antecedents in the history of
physics.-Boston Herald.