The earth is thus elaborating in all her gigantic processes, the materials and forces, which she furnishes in the great interchange. How strangely have these great sources of vis viva remained practically unheeded until the present time.
The Sun's part in the Process.
The part performed by the sun may but feebly be conceived.[7] Within its vast proportions (being 1,000 times as large as all the planets combined) may be found every element suited to all requirements.
We seek a new Philosophy.
The construction of a true philosophy of the physical forces must depend now upon our rightly understanding the modus operandi of the conveyance, and utilization, of these sun-elements, and the workings of this sun-power.
The presence of a veritable flood of light, heat, and magnetic force, as in motion from the sun to the earth, has ever been recognized. The line of greatest intensity of this solar, or vito-magnetic current, is found along the line of greatest diameters of those bodies. The centre of this current reaches the earth at, or near the equator.
It is a well-established fact that from the equator to the poles a continuous magnetic flood is ever in motion.[8]
In thus tracing the course of the magnetic current from the sun to the equator, and thence to the poles, a physical necessity, made imperative by the inexorable law of conservation, indicates that a retro-current from the earth back to the sun, must now have part in the process. Should such be the case, as all reason and philosophy affirm, we have a completed "Grand Magnetic Circuit," in and through which all physical phenomena have their origin. But aside from the logical necessity, we hold that there are terrestrial phenomena, which, rightly interpreted, point to just such a retro-acting inter-communication.