capable of losing an electron, of having at least one chipped off it. The election has been shown to possess in kind, though not in degree, the fundamental properties of the original atom of which it had formed a part; and it becomes a reasonable hypothesis to surmise that the whole of the atom may be built up of positive and negative electrons interleaved together, and of nothing else; an active or charged ion having one electron in excess or defect, but the neutral atom having an exact number of pairs. The oppositely charged electrons are to be thought of on this hypothesis as flying about inside the atom, as a few thousand specks like full stops might fly about inside this hall; forming a kind of cosmic system under their strong mutual forces, and occupying the otherwise empty region of space which we call the atom—occupying it in the same sense that a few scattered but armed soldiers can occupy a territory—occupying it by forceful activity, not by bodily bulk.
6. The hypothetical part of the statement about the size of an electron is the following. Whereas both the mass and the charge of an electron is known, it is not yet quite certain that the mass is wholly due to the charge. It is possible, but to me very unlikely, that the electron, as we know it, contains a material nucleus in addition to its charge, so in that case it need not be so concentrated, because a portion of its mass would be otherwise accounted for.
I say 'accounted for,' but it would be equally true to say unaccounted for. The mass which is explicable electrically is to a considerable extent understood, but the mass which is merely material (whatever that may mean) is not understood at all. We know more about electricity than about matter; and the way in which electrical inertia is accounted for electromagnetically and localized in the ether immediately surrounding the nucleus of charge, is comparatively clear and distinct.
There may possibly be two different kinds of inertia, which exactly simulate each other, one electrical and the other material; and those who hold this as a reasonable possibility are careful to speak of electrons as 'corpuscles,' meaning charged particles of matter of extremely small size, much smaller than an atom, consisting of a definite electric charge and an unknown material nucleus; which nucleus, as they recognize, but have not yet finally proved, may quite possibly be zero.
The chief defect in the electrical theory of matter at present is that the positive electron, if it exists, has never yet been isolated from the rest of an atom of matter. It has never been found detached from a mass less than the hydrogen atom; whereas the negative electron is constantly and freely encountered flying about alone, its mass being little more than the thousandth part of an atom of hydrogen.
