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A SELECTION OF CONTRADICTORY HYPOTHESES. 527
between the assumed nature of Ether and its physical behaviour. A
second proof is found in the many contradictory statements made
about the Atom—the most metaphysical object in creation.
Now, what does the modern science of Physics know of Ether, the
first concept of which belongs undeniably to ancient Philosophers, the
Greeks having borrowed it from the Aryans, and the origin of modern
A
Ether being found in, and disfigured from, Akasha This disfigurement
is claimed as a modification and refinement of the idea of Lucretius.
L,et us then examine the modern concept, from several scientific
volumes containing the admissions of the Physicists themselves.
As Stallo shows, the existence of Ether is accepted in Physical
Astronomy, in ordinary Physics, and in Chemistry.
By the astronomers, this aether was originally regarded as a fluid of extreme
tenuity and mobility, offering no sensible resistance to the motions of celestial
bodies, and the question of its continuity or discontinuity was not seriously mooted.
Its main function in modem astronomy has been to serve as a basis for hydrodynamical
theories of gravitation. In physics this fluid appeared for some time in
several roles in connection with the "imponderables" [so cruelly put to death by
Sir William Grove], some physicists going so far as to identify it with one or more
of them.*
Stallo then points out the change caused by the kinetic theories ; that
from the date of the dynamical theory of heat. Ether was chosen in
Optics as a substratum for luminous undulations. Next, in order to
explain the dispersion and polarization of light. Physicists had to
resort once more to their "scientific imagination," and forthwith endowed
the Ether with (a) atomic or molecular structure, and (^) with
an enormous elasticity, "so that its resistance to deformation far exceeded
that of the most rigid elastic bodies." This necessitated the
theory of the essential discontinuity of Matter, hence of Ether. After
having accepted this discontinuity, in order to account for dispersion
and polarization, theoretical impossibilities were discovered with regard
to such dispersion. Cauchy's "scientific imagination" saw in Atoms
"material points without extension," and he proposed, in order to
obviate the most formidable obstacles to the undulatory theory (namely,
some well-known mechanical theorems which stood in the way), to
assume that the ethereal medium of propagation, instead of being continuous,
should consist of particles separated by sensible distances.
Fresnel rendered the same service to the phenomena of polarization.
E. B. Hunt upset the theories of both.f There are now men of Science
• stallo, loc. cit., p. X.
t Silliman's Journal, vol. viii. pp. 364 et seq.