Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-06-28
WHAT Is ELECTRICITY?
Scientists Who Contend That There Ia
No Such Thing.

From the Boston Herald.
People who have an idea that electricity is
an entity rather than form of expression of
energy will be interested in a statement in re-
gard to it from gentleman Of such high scien-
tific attainments as Prof A. E. Dolbear of Tufts
College. Prof. Dolbear says that in that inter-
esting book on Modern Views of Electricity"
by Prof. o. J. Lodge, there is made the sug-
gestive statement that, after all the inquiries
have been made as to what is electricity, the
answer may have to be, there is no such
such thing. The words electric" and "electri-
fication" may be retained, he says, but the
word electricity" may have to 20, simply be-
cause it does not stand for reality.
1t may be difficult for one who looks at the
phenomena rather than to the relations in
volved in the phenomena. to imagine that cleo
tricity is not some sort of an entity, and may
be described, il one knew how, as one would
describe any other something. 1t would cer-
talnlv be curious ii it should turn out that the
reason no answer has been forthcoming to the
question, What is electricity? is that there il
no such thing and the question is an improper
one; as if one should ask, What is odor, or
brightness, or zero?
A hundred years or more ago heat phenomena
we're attributed to phlogiston or caloric-each
supposed to be an entity of some sort The
latter term is still retained for convenience, but
it has ceased to have any significance as a some
thing that gives origin to heat phenomena.
When it was discovered that such phenomena
were due to atomic and molecular vibrations,
or what is now often called a mode of motion"
both the above words ceased to have any mean
ing; in other words, there was no such thing as
phlogistOn or caloric.
Again, light was once thought to be an en-
tity; now we know that light is a sensation and
properly does not exist independent of the
eye. What was treated as light is now called
radiant energy" or ''ether waves" Though
the term Slight" is retained it has lost the sig
nifcance it had when it was supposed to be .
created something.
The psychologists for . very long time ex-
planned the phenomena exhibited by living
things, both vegetable and animal, as due to
''vital force"-something supposed to be ut
terly unlike and not necessarily related to the
other forces in nature-A force that could
control the others in q living organization.
Now that has been altogether abandoned No
biologist OF any repute now believes in vital
force" and the question, What is life? which
has bAffied every one in his attempt to define
it, now turns out to be an improper question,
as it il reducibie to complicated molecular no.
tions and not to an entity.
As magnetism is known to be due to the po-
sition Of molecules, as chemism may be ex-
planned 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 indi-
viduality as matter has, have no existence at
all, and that matter and ether and motions
Of one sort or another are all factors in phe-
uomena. Lodges statement, then, has de-
gree of probability added to it by the antece-
dents in the history Of physics.