Attraction and the attraction due to Electrical Induction.
The cause of one, however, is known, being due to the inductive
influence of the various electrified bodies that exist in space, which
inductive influence can be traced through the whole of the atomic Aether
that exists between the two bodies, whereas the cause of the centripetal
force or Gravitation Attraction is unknown. According to the Rules of
Philosophy, therefore, it will be much simpler if we replace our
Gravitation Attraction, whose cause is unknown, by the inductive power
of the various bodies, the physical cause of which lies in the
electro-magnetic Aether, or the dielectric as Faraday called it. In
other words, we are compelled to come to the conclusion that the
centripetal force, or Gravitation Attraction so called, is an electrical
phenomenon, which finds its physical cause in the same universal Aether
that the centrifugal force does.

Unless this view of the attraction of Gravitation is accepted, we should
have two forces operating between all bodies, both operating at exactly
the same time, in exactly the same direction, and with exactly the same
intensity, and this phenomenon according to Newton would be
unphilosophical. In Art. 4 we learn that Newton in the first rule states
that "Nature is simple, and does not abound in superfluous causes of
things." And again: "In the nature of Philosophy nothing is done in vain;
and by means of many things, it is done in vain when it can be done by
fewer." Here then we have apparently two forces which act in the same
molecular or planetary or interstellar space, at one and the same time.
Therefore if this be true, Nature does abound in a superfluous cause,
because we have two forces in existence where one will suffice, and one
of them therefore exists in vain. So that it will be philosophical if we
do away with one of the causes, and replace the two causes by only one.
Now which shall be done away with--the electrical attraction which is due
to a physical medium, the electro-magnetic Aether, or the Gravitation
Attraction, that is caused by some virtue of a body of which we have no
knowledge, which is transmitted through space in a way that we cannot
understand, and acts upon distant bodies in a manner altogether outside
our usual experience and observation? There can only be one answer. If
either of the two forces has to be done away with, it must be the
mysterious, intangible, unphilosophical attraction of G