mysterious force and the laws governing it might help to solve the riddle of the universe. I studied its application to ordinary machinery and then applied it to the universe as a vast machine. And behold! the universe as a mighty electric machine or organism answered every scientific question and solved every puzzle in the material world as far as I could comprehend them.

I applied it to suns and planets, man and all animal and vegetable organisms, and as electric creations and electric generators they explained a thousand mysteries. I found man the most perfect electric organism, woven by electric energy from invisible atoms, receiving his physical life, growth and nutrition, and digesting and assimilating his food by an electric process, such as Prof. Loeb and Dr. Matthews discovered in 1902, nearly twenty years after. I soon formulated a theory of electrical creation, which has recently been accepted by some of the ablest scientists.

These things I discussed openly and on the platform for many years and then I published them in my book, The New Cosmogony, in 1898, in Invisible Light in 1900 and in The Cities of the Sun in 1901.

My attention was first called to this subject about twenty years ago when Prof. Henry built the first electric street railway ever built in this country. It was built on East Fifth Street, in Kansas City, Missouri, the city where I was living, and attracted much attention. It was used for only a short time because the machinery was not sufficiently perfected, and there was too great a waste of power, and the insulation was bad, for it magnetized and stopped the watches in the pockets of the passengers. While pondering over this electric railway and its mysterious force, as I sat in the twilight in the parlor of the old Coates House, a servant came in to light the gas. Instead of using a match, he turned on the gas, took a few gliding steps over the carpet and lit the gas by a flash of electricity from his finger, produced by touching his finger against the tip of the gas jet. I was surprised and said, "Have you enough fire in your body to light the gas?" He answered, "Yes, sir." I said, "Can you do that again?" "Yes, sir," and he turned on another jet took a few gliding steps over the carpet, touched the tip of the jet with his finger; there was a flash and the gas was lit.

I was amazed, for this was a new electric manifestation to me. He said, "You can do it, sir." "Well, I'll see if I can," and I took a few gliding steps over the carpet. He turned on the gas, I touched the jet with the tip of my finger and a flash of electric fire, an inch long, lit the gas. This I did many times afterwards and saw a dozen others do the same thing. In fact the servants seldom used matches in that parlor, the carpet held such a surplus of electricity most any person could by a few gliding steps increase the electricity of their body so they could light the gas by a touch.

Then I began to think—electric fire in man's body, in the clouds, in coal and wood, on the telegraph line, in flint, in cold steel—in everything. Electricity must be light, heat, life and creative force, and will explain the mysteries of nature.

In the hot, dry summer of 1901, when The Cities of the Sun[1] was issued, my publisher called me to one side and said that his salesman was going out West. He asked, "If he offers to sell your book, which says the sun is not hot, to those old Kansas farmers, won't they mob him and hang him to the first available tree?" I admitted it did look serious on account of the extreme heat then afflicting the West, but told him to have his salesman inform them that if they would go up in a balloon a few thousand feet nearer the sun they would freeze to death, and that if they had an arm that would reach four thousand feet up into the atmosphere it would freeze to the elbow in less than thirty minutes, the hottest day ever known, as every two thousand feet upwards from the earth there is a loss of over one hundred degrees of heat. I mention this to show how some of these theories may shock the sensibilities of some unscientific thinkers.

All scientists declare that the sun is a burning globe and also the material and electric center of the solar system; but I conceived it to be a living world like our earth, only more prolific in life and power, and the intellectual and spiritual center of our system of worlds. I believe I present the only reasonable scientific hypothesis ever presented in the history of the human race which shows and explains the unity, oneness and perfect organism of the universe. It shows that the universe is self-sustaining, harmonious and eternal, creating its own cosmic light, heat and life in the magnetic atmosphere of its suns and planets, and so simple that the law of atoms is the law of suns and worlds.

With the able assistance of the many scientists, electricians and specialists who have recently accepted and championed these theories, and the progress already made, they bid fair to soon revolutionize scientific thought.

The time will come, and is not far distant, when those who believe the sun is hot, or a burning globe of fire, will be regarded as the devotees of an antiquated superstition. The enlightened world will look upon them as they do now on those who believe in witches, human slavery and that the earth is flat; and will pity their ignorance, as we do those who worshipped the gods of Olympus.

CHAPTER I THE UNIVERSE IS A VAST ELECTRIC ORGANISM

Electricity, next to Deity, is the most remarkable entity in the universe. Its marvelous and varied powers and utilities create a new epoch in scientific thought and discovery. Its study is replete with new and fascinating ideas and scientific theories. It contains the story of the universe more sublime than an epic, more wonderful than a romance. It organized the machinery of the worlds, and holds the secrets of nature and the mysteries of life in its invisible grasp.

Electricity is the right hand of Deity, the tongue of the Spirit, the Word of Omnipotent power, the protean cosmic force and creative machinery of the universe. At the divine fiat it seized all atoms and space, it shook the ether into nebula, the nebula into worlds, the worlds into constellations, the constellations into a universe. It shaped planets and rounded suns and hurled them forth to circle in the chorus of the singing spheres. It gave form and functions to all matter from the rounded pebble to the stars; from the raindrop to the surging seas; from the chirping cricket to the sporting leviathan; from the helpless infant to the giant man.

It is the messenger and executive of Creative Will to all created things. It is the ambassador of spirit to matter, the autocrat of communication between all the faculties of mind and all the functions of physical existence. It is the law of affinity in matter, of selection in atoms, and whispers to the body the intuitions of the Spirit and guides insensate worlds to do the will of Creative Omnipotence.

Electricity is the wonderful medium and agent by which mind acts upon matter and works the miracle of life and growth. This mightiest servant