start with Faraday's
conceptions as to magnetic phenomena, and follow them out to their
logical conclusions, applying them to molecules and the reactions of the
latter upon the ether. Thus he was led to conclude that light was an
electro-magnetic phenomenon; that is, that the waves which constitute
light, and the waves produced by changing magnetism were identical in
their nature, were in the same medium, travelled with the same velocity,
were capable of refraction, and so on. Now that all this is a matter of
common knowledge to-day, it is curious to look back no further than ten
years. Maxwell's conclusions were adopted by scarcely a physicist in
the world. Although it was known that inductive action travelled with
finite velocity in space, and that an electro-magnet would affect the
space about it practically inversely as the square of the distance, and
that such phenomena as are involved in telephonic induction between
circuits could have no other meaning than the one assigned by Maxwell,
yet nearly all the physicists failed to form the only conception of it
that was possible, and waited for Hertz to devise apparatus for
producing interference before they grasped it. It was even then so new,
to some, that it was proclaimed to be a demonstration of the existence
of the ether itself, as well as a method of producing waves short enough
to enable one to notice interference phenomena. It is obvious that Hertz
himself must have had the mechanics of wave-motion plainly in mind, or
he would not have planned such experiments. The outcome of it all is,
that we now have experimental demonstration, as well as theoretical
reason for believing, that the ether, once considered as only
luminiferous, is concerned in all electric and magnetic phenomena, and
that waves set up in it by electro-magnetic actions are capable of being
reflected, refracted, polarized, and twisted, in the same way as
ordinary light-waves can be, and that the laws of optics are applicable
to both.

CHAPTER II

PROPERTIES OF MATTER AND ETHER

Properties of Matter and Ether compared--Discontinuity
_versus_ Continuity--Size of atoms--Astronomical
distances--Number of atoms in the universe--Ether
unlimited--Kinds of Matter, permanent qualities
of--Atomic structure; vortex-rings, their
properties--Ether structureless--Matter
gravitative, Ether not--Friction in Matter, Ether
frictionless--Chemical properties--Energy in
Mat