Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/268

 steam operating an engine passes to an attached dynamo. The force in the dynamo is the same as that of the piston-head and of the steam. Yet the force of electricity generated by the dynamo is not the force of steam nor of the coal, but of electricity operative when the latent state of ether is overcome. Electricity is generated by the continual breakings of the attraction between the fields and armature of the dynamo, and is not the force of the steam transferred or transformed. It is true that the force of steam does this breaking; but the force generated is clearly one natural to electricity and not to steam or to coal. The force of steam simply overcomes the force that holds ether in a latent state. The force of the steam is not changed into the force of electricity, but is used in producing such a condition as will allow the ether to assume an activity natural to it. This activity is derived from that of a superior atmosphere, communicable when the particles of ether are sufficiently freed to respond. That only a certain amount of electrical force can be generated by a given amount of heat-force in coal or steam, is not because only the force that is in the steam or coal can be transferred to the ether, but it is due to the fact that latent ether can become active only in proportion to the disturbance of its equilibrium; but this dis-