This Cruel Age has deflected me.
It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God.
As the cathode rays carry a charge of negative electricity, are deflected by an electrostatic force as if they were negatively electrified, and are acted on by a magnetic force in just the way in which this force would act on a negatively electrified body moving along the path of these rays, I can see no escape from the conclusion that they are charges of negative electricity carried by particles of matter.