For not
only do all the radioactive substances give off particles of helium gas
positively electrified, but _all bodies, no matter what their
composition_, can by suitable treatment, such as exposing them to
ultra-violet light, or raising them to incandescence, be made to _give
off electrons_ or negatively charged particles, and _these electrons are
always the same no matter from what kind of substance they come_. In a
somewhat similar way, we always get positively electrified particles of
the mass of the hydrogen atom, or about 1,760 times the mass of the
electron, whenever we send an electric charge through a gas at very low
pressure, _no matter what the kind of gas_. Whether or not these
positive units will yet prove susceptible of being split up into smaller
particles comparable to the electrons, is merely a subject for
conjecture. We have no proof that they will. At the present time what we
call matter seems to be composed of these positive units and of the
electrons which are about 1/1760 as great; and in the present state of
our knowledge these facts suffice to explain all the properties of
matter. Thus we can either say that electricity is composed of matter,
or say that matter is composed of electricity; and human language at
best is such a clumsy vehicle of thought that scientifically and
philosophically the one statement is as correct and as reasonable as the
other.
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