It is this pressure
that holds an armature to the magnet. As heat is a molecular condition
of vibration, and radiant energy the result of it, so is magnetism a
property of molecules, and the magnetic field the temporary condition in
the ether, which depends upon the presence of a magnetic body. We no
longer speak of the wave-motion in the ether which results from heat, as
heat, but call it radiation, or ether waves, and for a like reason the
magnetic field ought not to be called magnetism.

THE ETHER IS NON-MAGNETIC.

A magnetic field manifests itself in a way that implies that the ether
structure, if it may be said to have any, is deformed--deformed in such
a sense that another magnet in it tends to set itself in the plane of
the stress; that is, the magnet is twisted into a new position to
accommodate itself to the condition of the medium about it. The new
position is the result of the reaction of the ether upon the magnet and
ether pressure acting at right angles to the body that produced the
stress. Such an action is so anomalous as to suggest the propriety of
modifying the so-called third law of motion, viz., action and reaction
are equal and opposite, adding that sometimes action and reaction are at
right angles.

There is no condition or property exhibited by the ether itself which
shows it to have any such characteristic as attraction, repulsion, or
differences in stress, except where its condition is modified by the
activities of matter in some way. The ether itself is not attracted or
repelled by a magnet; that is, it is not a magnetic body in any such
sense as matter in any of its forms is, and therefore cannot properly be
called magnetic.

It has been a mechanical puzzle to understand how the vibratory motions
called heat could set up light waves in the ether seeing that there is
an absence of friction in the latter. In the endeavour to conceive it,
the origin of sound-waves has been in mind, where longitudinal air-waves
are produced by the vibrations of a sounding body, and molecular impact
is the antecedent of the waves. The analogy does not apply. The
following exposition may be helpful in grasping the idea of such
transformation and change of energy from matter to the ether.

Consider a straight bar permanent magnet to be held in the hand. It has
its north and south poles and its field, the latter extending in every
direction to an indefinite distance. The field is to be considered as
ether stre