The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 Part 20

There is, however, another reason which warrants us in a.s.serting that electricity, as a physical quant.i.ty, synonymous with the total electrification of a body, is not, like heat, a form of energy. An electrified system has a certain amount of energy, and this energy can be calculated. The physical qualities, "electricity" and "potential,"

when multiplied together, produce the quant.i.ty, "energy." It is impossible, therefore, that electricity and energy should be quant.i.ties of the same category, for electricity is only one of the factors of energy, the other factor being "potential."

Electricity is treated as a substance in most theories of the subject, but as there are two kinds of electrification, which, being combined, annul each other, a distinction has to be drawn between free electricity and combined electricity, for we cannot conceive of two substances annulling each other. In the two-fluid theory, all bodies, in their unelectrified state, are supposed to be charged with equal quant.i.ties of positive and negative electricity. These quant.i.ties are supposed to be so great than no process of electrification has ever yet deprived a body of all the electricity of either kind. The two electricities are called "fluids" because they are capable of being transferred from one body to another, and are, within conducting bodies, extremely mobile.

In the one-fluid theory everything is the same as in the theory of two fluids, except that, instead of supposing the two substances equal and opposite in all respects, one of them, generally the negative one, has been endowed with the properties and name of ordinary matter, while the other retains the name of the electric fluid. The particles of the fluid are supposed to repel each other according to the law of the inverse square of the distance, and to attract those of matter according to the same law. Those of matter are supposed to repel each other and attract those of electricity. This theory requires us, however, to suppose the ma.s.s of the electric fluid so small that no attainable positive or negative electrification has yet perceptibly increased or diminished the ma.s.s or the weight of a body, and it has not yet been able to a.s.sign sufficient reasons why the positive rather than the negative electrification should be supposed due to an _excess_ quant.i.ty of electricity.

For my own part, I look for additional light on the nature of electricity from a study of what takes place in the s.p.a.ce intervening between the electrified bodies. Some of the phenomena are explained equally by all the theories, while others merely indicate the peculiar difficulties of each theory. We may conceive the relation into which the electrified bodies are thrown, either as the result of the state of the intervening medium, or as the result of a direct action between the electrified bodies at a distance. If we adopt the latter conception, we may determine the law of the action, but we can go no further in speculating on its cause.

If, on the other hand, we adopt the conception of action through a medium, we are led to inquire into the nature of that action in each part of the medium. If we calculate on this hypothesis the total energy residing in the medium, we shall find it equal to the energy due to the electrification of the conductors on the hypothesis of direct action at a distance. Hence, the two hypotheses are mathematically equivalent.

On the hypothesis that the mechanical action observed between electrified bodies is exerted through and by means of the medium, as the action of one body on another by means of the tension of a rope or the pressure of a rod, we find that the medium must be in a state of mechanical stress. The nature of the stress is, as Faraday pointed out, a tension along the lines of force combined with an equal pressure in all directions at right angles to these lines. This distribution of stress is the only one consistent with the observed mechanical action on the electrified bodies, and also with the observed equilibrium of the fluid dielectric which surrounds them. I have, therefore, a.s.sumed the actual existence of this state of stress.

Every case of electrification or discharge may be considered as a motion in a closed circuit, such that at every section of the circuit the same quant.i.ty of electricity crosses in the same time; and this is the case, not only in the voltaic current, where it has always been recognised, but in those cases in which electricity has been generally supposed to be acc.u.mulated in certain places. We are thus led to a very remarkable consequence of the theory which we are examining, namely, that the motions of electricity are like those of an _incompressible_ fluid, so that the total quant.i.ty within an imaginary fixed closed surface remains always the same.

The peculiar features of the theory as developed in this book are as follows.

That the energy of electrification resides in the dielectric medium, whether that medium be solid or gaseous, dense or rare, or even deprived of ordinary gross matter, provided that it be still capable of transmitting electrical action.

That the energy in any part of the medium is stored up in the form of a constraint called polarisation, dependent on the resultant electromotive force (the difference of potentials between two conductors) at the place.

That electromotive force acting on a dielectric produces what we call electric displacement.

That in fluid dielectrics the electric polarisation is accompanied by a tension in the direction of the lines of force combined with an equal pressure in all directions at right angles to the lines of force.

That the surfaces of any elementary portion into which we may conceive the volume of the dielectric divided must be conceived to be electrified, so that the surface density at any point of the surface is equal in magnitude to the displacement through that point of the surface _reckoned inwards_.

That, whatever electricity may be, the phenomena which we have called electric displacement is a movement of electricity in the same sense as the transference of a definite quant.i.ty of electricity through a wire.

_II.--Theories of Magnetism_

Certain bodies--as, for instance, the iron ore called loadstone, the earth itself, and pieces of steel which have been subjected to certain treatment--are found to possess the following properties, and are called magnets.

If a magnet be suspended so as to turn freely about a vertical axis, it will in general tend to set itself in a certain azimuth, and, if disturbed from this position, it will oscillate about it.

It is found that the force which acts on the body tends to cause a certain line in the body--called the axis of the magnet--to become parallel to a certain line in s.p.a.ce, called the "direction of the magnetic force."

The ends of a long thin magnet are commonly called its poles, and like poles repel each other; while unlike poles attract each other. The repulsion between the two magnetic poles is in the straight line joining them, and is numerically equal to the products of the strength of the poles divided by the square of the distance between them; that is, it varies as the inverse square of the distance. Since the form of the law of magnetic action is identical with that of electric action, the same reasons which can be given for attributing electric phenomena to the action of one "fluid," or two "fluids" can also be used in favour of the existence of a magnetic matter, fluid or otherwise, provided new laws are introduced to account for the actual facts.

At all parts of the earth's surface, except some parts of the polar regions, one end of a magnet points in a northerly direction and the other in a southerly one. Now a bar of iron held parallel to the direction of the earth's magnetic force is found to become magnetic. Any piece of soft iron placed in a magnetic field is found to exhibit magnetic properties. These are phenomena of _induced_ magnetism. Poisson supposes the magnetism of iron to consist in a separation of the magnetic fluids within each magnetic molecule. Weber's theory differs from this in a.s.suming that the molecules of the iron are always magnets, even before the application of the magnetising force, but that in ordinary iron the magnetic axes of the molecules are turned indifferently in every direction, so that the iron as a whole exhibits no magnetic properties; and this theory agrees very well with what is observed.

The theories establish the fact that magnetisation is a phenomenon, not of large ma.s.ses of iron, but of molecules; that is to say, of portions of the substance so small that we cannot by any mechanical method cut them in two, so as to obtain a north pole separate from the south pole.

We have arrived at no explanation, however, of the nature of a magnetic molecule, and we have therefore to consider the hypothesis of Ampere--that the magnetism of the molecule is due to an electric current constantly circulating in some closed path within it.

Ampere concluded that if magnetism is to be explained by means of electric currents, these currents must circulate within the molecules of the magnet, and cannot flow from one molecule to another. As we cannot experimentally measure the magnetic action at a point within the molecule, this hypothesis cannot be disproved in the same way that we can disprove the hypothesis of sensible currents within the magnet. In spite of its apparent complexity, Ampere's theory greatly extends our mathematical vision into the interior of the molecules.

_III.--The Electro-Magnetic Theory of Light_

We explain electro-magnetic phenomena by means of mechanical action transmitted from one body to another by means of a medium occupying the s.p.a.ce between them. The undulatory theory of light also a.s.sumes the existence of a medium. We have to show that the properties of the electro-magnetic medium are identical with those of the luminiferous medium.

To fill all s.p.a.ce with a new medium whenever any new phenomena are to be explained is by no means philosophical, but if the study of two different branches of science has independently suggested the idea of a medium; and if the properties which must be attributed to the medium in order to account for electro-magnetic phenomena are of the same kind as those which we attribute to the luminiferous medium in order to account for the phenomena of light, the evidence for the physical existence of the medium is considerably strengthened.

According to the theory of emission, the transmission of light energy is effected by the actual transference of light-corpuscles from the luminous to the illuminated body. According to the theory of undulation there is a material medium which fills the s.p.a.ce between the two bodies, and it is by the action of contiguous parts of this medium that the energy is pa.s.sed on, from one portion to the next, till it reaches the illuminated body. The luminiferous medium is therefore, during the pa.s.sage of light through it, a receptacle of energy. This energy is supposed to be partly potential and partly kinetic, and our theory agrees with the undulatory theory in a.s.suming the existence of a medium capable of becoming a receptacle for two forms of energy.

Now, the properties of bodies are capable of quant.i.tative measurement.

We therefore obtain the numerical value of some property of the medium--such as the velocity with which a disturbance is propagated in it, which can be calculated from experiments, and also observed directly in the case of light. If it be found that the velocity of propagation of electro-magnetic disturbance is the same as the velocity of light, we have strong reasons for believing that light is an electro-magnetic phenomenon.

It is, in fact, found that the velocity of light and the velocity of propagation of electro-magnetic disturbance are quant.i.ties of the same order of magnitude. Neither of them can be said to have been determined accurately enough to say that one is greater than the other. In the meantime, our theory a.s.serts that the quant.i.ties are equal, and a.s.signs a physical reason for this equality, and it is not contradicted by the comparison of the results, such as they are.

Lorenz has deduced from Kirchoff's equations of electric currents a new set of equations, indicating that the distribution of force in the electro-magnetic field may be considered as arising from the mutual action of contiguous elements, and that waves, consisting of transverse electric currents, may be propagated, with a velocity comparable with that of light, in non-conducting media. These conclusions are similar to my own, though obtained by an entirely different method.

The most important step in establishing a relation between electric and magnetic phenomena and those of light must be the discovery of some instance in which one set of phenomena is affected by the other. Faraday succeeded in establishing such a relation, and the experiments by which he did so are described in the nineteen series of his "Experimental Researches." Suffice it to state here that he showed that in the case of aray of plane-polarised light the effect of the magnetic force is to turn the plane of polarisation round the direction of the ray as an axis, through a certain angle.

The action of magnetism on polarised light leads to the conclusion that in a medium under the action of a magnetic force, something belonging to the same mathematical cla.s.s as an angular velocity, whose axis is in the direction of the magnetic force, forms part of the phenomenon. This angular velocity cannot be any portion of the medium of sensible dimensions rotating as a whole. We must, therefore, conceive the rotation to be that of very small portions of the medium, each rotating on its own axis.

This is the hypothesis of molecular vortices. The displacements of the medium during the propagation of light will produce a disturbance of the vortices, and the vortices, when so disturbed, may react on the medium so as to affect the propagation of the ray. The theory proposed is of a provisional kind, resting as it does on unproved hypotheses relating to the nature of molecular vortices, and the mode in which they are affected by the displacement of the medium.

_IV.--Action at a Distance_

There appears to be some prejudice, or _a priori_ objection, against the hypothesis of a medium in which the phenomena of radiation of light and heat, and the electric actions at a distance, take place. It is true that at one time those who speculated as to the cause of physical phenomena were in the habit of accounting for each kind of action at a distance by means of a special aethereal fluid, whose function and property it was to produce these actions. They filled all s.p.a.ce three and four times over with aethers of different kinds, the properties of which consisted merely to "save appearances," so that more rational inquirers were willing to accept not only Newton's definite law of attraction at a distance, but even the dogma of Cotes that action at a distance is one of the primary properties of matter, and that no explanation can be more intelligible than this fact. Hence the undulatory theory of light has met with much opposition, directed not against its failure to explain the phenomena, but against its a.s.sumption of the existence of a medium in which light is propagated.

The mathematical expression for electro-dynamic action led, in the mind of Gauss, to the conviction that a theory of the propagation of electric action would in time be found to be the very keystone of electro-dynamics. Now, we are unable to conceive of propagation in time, except either as the flight of a material substance through s.p.a.ce or as the propagation of a condition of motion or stress in a medium already existing in s.p.a.ce.

In the theory of Neumann, the mathematical conception called potential, which we are unable to conceive as a material substance, is supposed to be projected from one particle to another, in a manner which is quite independent of a medium, and which, as Neumann has himself pointed out, is extremely different from that of the propagation of light. In other theories it would appear that the action is supposed to be propagated in a manner somewhat more similar to that of light.

But in all these theories the question naturally occurs: "If something is transmitted from one particle to another at a distance, what is its condition after it had left the one particle, and before it reached the other?" If this something is the potential energy of the two particles, as in Neumann's theory, how are we to conceive this energy as existing in a point of s.p.a.ce coinciding neither with the one particle nor with the other? In fact, whenever energy is transmitted from one body to another in time, there must be a medium or substance in which the energy exists after it leaves one body, and before it reaches the other, for energy, as Torricelli remarked, "is a quintessence of so subtile a nature that it cannot be contained in any vessel except the inmost substance of material things."

Hence all these theories lead to the conception of a medium in which the propagation takes place, and if we admit this medium as an hypothesis, I think we ought to endeavour to construct a mental representation of all the details of its action, and this has been my constant aim in this treatise.

ELIE METCHNIKOFF

The Nature of Man

Elie Metchnikoff, Sub-Director of the Pasteur Inst.i.tute in Paris, was born May 15, 1845, in the province of Kharkov, Russia, and has worked at the Pasteur Inst.i.tute since 1888. The greater part of Metchnikoff's work is concerned with the most intimate processes of the body, and notably the means by which it defends itself from the living agents of disease. He is, indeed, the author of a standard treatise ent.i.tled "Immunity in Infective Diseases." His early work in zoology led him to study the water-flea, and thence to discover that the white cells of the human blood oppose, consume, and destroy invading microbes. Latterly, Metchnikoff has devoted himself in some measure to more general and especially philosophical studies, the outcome of which is best represented by the notable volume on "The Nature of Man," which was published at Paris in 1903.

_I.--Disharmonies in Nature_

Notwithstanding the real advance made by science, it cannot be disputed that a general uneasiness disturbs the whole world to-day, and the frequency of suicide is increased greatly among civilised peoples. Yet if science turns to study human nature, there may be grounds for hope.

The Greeks held human nature and the human body in high esteem, and among the Romans such a philosopher as Seneca said, "Take nature as your guide, for so reason bids you and advises you; to live happily is to live naturally." In our own day Herbert Spencer has expressed again the Greek ideal, seeking the foundation of morality in human nature itself.

But it has often been taught that human nature is composed of two hostile elements, a body and a soul. The soul alone was to be honoured, while the body was regarded as the vile source of evils. This doctrine has had many disastrous consequences, and it is not surprising that in consequence of it celibacy should have been regarded as the ideal state.

Art fell from the Greek ideal until the Renaissance, with its return to that ideal, brought new vigour. When the ancient spirit was born again its influence reached science and even religion, and the Reformation was a defence of human nature. The Lutheran doctrines resumed the principle of a "development as complete as possible of all the natural powers" of man, and compulsory celibacy was abolished.