_Popular Lectures_[33] on the subject says: "If it is true that
terrestrial magnetism is a necessary consequence of the magnetism and
the rotation of the earth, other bodies comparable in these qualities
with the earth, and comparable also with the earth in respect to
materials and temperature, such as Venus and Mars, must be magnets,
comparable in strength with the earth; and they must have poles similar
to the earth, North and South poles on the North and South sides of the
equator. It seems probable also that the sun, because of its great mass
and its rotation in the same direction as the earth's rotation, is a
magnet, with polarities on the North and South sides of the equator,
similar to terrestrial North and South magnetic poles." Further, such a
conclusion is entirely in harmony with the view of the solar system
revealed in Art. 81, where we saw that each planet was an electrified
body having its own electric field, with its lines of force, being
capable of giving rise to all the phenomena associated with electricity.
So that if we combine that view of the subject with the view that we are
now coming to, we arrive at the conclusion that each planet and
satellite, and indeed all bodies that move or revolve in space, are
electro-magnets giving rise to magnetic waves in the Aether, which
assumption is fully consistent with the electro-magnetic theory of light.

We must now go one step further and apply a similar line of reasoning to
the sun, when we shall arrive at exactly the same result that Lord
Kelvin arrived at, according to the previous extract. All planets
possess an atmosphere, the sun also possesses an atmosphere. All planets
revolve on their axes from West to East, so does the sun. All planets
possess a North and South pole the same as the sun.

The equatorial diameter of every planet is greater than its polar
diameter, and the same truth applies to the sun. It is hotter at the
equatorial regions of every planet, and this truth also applies to the
sun. Now, if the sun agrees with all the planets in these respects, then
we may philosophically conclude that it agrees with them in another
respect, viz. that the sun is also a magnet possessing its own magnetic
field, which is co-equal and co-extensive with its aetherial electrical
field. We have already seen that the sun is an electrified body,
possessing its electric field, with its electric lines of force.
Therefore the sun is also a magnet, or, to speak mo