Excerpt from The Mechanics of ElectricityThe general consensus of opinion at present is that electricity is something. Lodge writes, Electricity may possibly be a form of matter - it is not a form of energy. We have nowhere asserted that electricity and the ether are identical. If they are, we are bound to admit that the ether, though ¿uid in the sense of enabling masses to move freely through it, has a certain amount of rigidity for enormously rapid and minute oscillatory disturbances. Is the ether electricity then? I do not say so, neither do I think that in that coarse statement lies the truth, but that they are connected there can be no doubt.Clausius surmised that electricity might be the ether, and if we may judge from certain passages the surmise amounted to a belief. This belief was, of course, not based upon any direct proof, for that is hardly possible, but was rather of the nature of an intuition. He seems to have been alone in this opinion.The object of this book is to show that electricity and the ether are identical. The ether is electricity and electricity is the ether. It been sought, through the cumulative and corroborative evidence of the phenomena to raise a presumption that amounts almost to a certainty.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.