ening fluid intercepts the
view, and thus no one may behold its body. Dark spots upon its face
disclose its true character.[5]

If, therefore, the sun be truly dark, the brightness of its satellites
cannot be caused by light projected from its surface or surroundings.
How, then, may we account for the light of the moon and planets, which
do not possess a light _sui generis_? A new hypothesis is requisite. To
frame this hypothesis is not difficult.

_The New Hypothesis._

Analogy teaches us that the earth is seen from the moon and planets,
even as they are seen from the earth. Yet there is nothing upon the face
of the whole earth which is capable of reflecting the slightest amount
of the sun's rays to those spheres. The fields, forests, rocks, and
seas, only absorb light, they do not reflect it. In this phenomenon,
therefore, there is no element of specular reflection. It consists
rather of the lighting up of the static vito-magnetic fluid of our
atmosphere, by the great solar current. The atmosphere, thus vivified,
discloses our presence to those orbs, and in like manner, their presence
to the inhabitants of the earth.

_No Borrowed Light._

The light of the planets is therefore in no sense a borrowed light,
since the action which generates and transmits it, is purely
co-operative. Otherwise there could be no light at the earth, or
planets.

_The Sun Dependent for His own Supply._

And, indeed, the sun possesses within himself alone no element of supply
of his own needed light and heat; and in his immensity and power is even
_dependent_ upon the circling orbs, for the quantity of each which is
indispensable to a condition of habitation.

The bodies of the planets are in like manner invisible; we behold but
the illumined atmosphere of each sphere. Thus the moon and planets, to
be visible, must possess atmospheres.

_Light as a Substance._

That the thunderbolt is a substance may not be questioned. That the
aurora borealis, or polaris, another form of vito-magnetic fluid, is a
substance is not questioned. The so-called heat-lightning, though
apparently intangible, must therefore be regarded as a substance. Yet
further in the remove we find the zodiacal light. Sunlight is but the
same, in form of extreme tenuity. The thunderbolt passes from earth to
cloud, and instantaneously changes its _substantial_ form to one as