Aether

“ God and the Universe.--To the superficial reader it may appear at first sight, that the theory of the Aether suggested in this work leaves no place in the Universe for the operations and existence of an Infinite and living Spirit, a God. It may be objected, that if all matter and all modes of motion find their physical origin in one common and primordial medium, the electro-magnetic Aether, where is the necessity for the existence of an Eternal and Infinite Spirit? ”

“ The truth is, that the universal Aether is in eternal motion, and that motion forms the physical life of the universe. If it were possible to destroy the motion, then the whole fabric of the universe would fall to pieces, and the beauty, order, and harmony of the celestial mechanism would be replaced by disorder, confusion, and ultimate ruin. Take any analogy of Nature, and see what such an analogy teaches us. Look at any planet, sun, or star. ”

“ To affirm that Aether is not matter, is to affirm something contrary to all experience, unless it be affirmed that Aether is motion, for which assumption the evidence is not nearly so strong or conclusive as that it is matter. Therefore the objector to this assumption is himself unphilosophical, in that he postulates or supposes that the Aether is a medium, with qualities which lie altogether outside the range of our experience and observation. ”

“ It is precisely so with these Aether-waves, when once generated and set in motion. They create others, the process being continued and perpetuated; and, unless arrested in their course, may continue until they reach the very limits and confines of material immensity and space. ”

“ The burning sun, the glowing star, the flying meteor, the glowing comet, the earth, our own island home, the towering rock, the wide ocean, the running river, the green trees of the forest, the tiny insect, the lordly elephant, all animals, plants, and our own physical body, all are composed of matter, either in solid, liquid or gaseous form. Therefore when we affirm that Aether is matter, the affirmation is strictly in accordance with the elementary principles of Philosophy, and in no way violates their rules or laws. ”

“ We must therefore consider the aether within dense bodies as somewhat loosely connected with the dense bodies, and we have next to inquire whether, when these dense bodies are in motion through the great ocean of aether, they carry along with them the aether they contain, or whether the aether passes through them as the water of the sea passes through the meshes of a net when it is towed along by a boat. ”

“ From the fact that Aether possesses inertia, and is also gravitative, we have now to alter our conception of this universal space-filling medium, and in place of a frictionless medium, which is incapable of imparting motion to any body, we have now to remember henceforth that the Aether is matter, which possesses inertia, and therefore has the capacity not only of offering resistance to any body moving through it, as a comet or meteor, but also of imparting the motion which it may receive in any manner to any other matter, as a planet, satellite, or sun, that may be floating in it. ”

“ Not only is there a decrease in density of the Aether, as the distance from the sun is increased, but there is also a decrease in the velocity of the moving Aether, with the result that the Aether at the distance of Mercury, possesses a greater angular velocity than at the distance of Venus.
It may be at once asked, How do we know that? Well, Philosophy alone can give us the key, and Philosophy tells us to base our theories and hypotheses on experience and experiment. Now what does experiment and experience teach us as to the effect of a body revolving in any medium upon that medium? ”

“ Thus the intensity of the aetherial pressure owing to the decreased distance will be greatly increased, and the effect of the increased pressure of the Aether upon the planet will be to push it away from the sun, so that the two forces may be equalized, and its mean distance, which is definitely fixed, be maintained as far as possible. ”

“ So that in the primordial and universal electro-magnetic Aether that exists in all space, we get those conditions which will not only give rise to the phenomena of light, heat, magnetism and electricity, but also those properties, qualities and motions by which are produced, maintained and perpetuated, the various bodies that exist in the Aether, which is at once the physical source and cause of the bodies. ”

“ We have not the slightest reason to believe that Aether is imponderable. It is just as likely to be attracted by the sun as air is. At all events the onus of proof rests with those who assert it is imponderable. I think we shall have to modify our ideas of what Gravitation is, if we have a mass spreading through space with mutual attraction between its parts, without being attracted by other bodies. ”

“ With this philosophical view of the Aether, which is entirely in harmony with our first and second Rules of Philosophy, we shall be able to give a physical explanation of the Law of Gravitation, as we have now a physical medium existing in all atomic, solar, and stellar space, which can both accept motion, and transmit that motion to other bodies. In other words, we have a medium which can both push and pull. ”

“ It is a simple supposition, because, unless Aether is assumed to be matter, then, instead of the universe being composed of two classes of things, matter and motion, we have to add a third class, which we call Aether. It can be readily seen, that by the introduction of a third class into the composition of the universe, such an addition, instead of simplifying the constitution of the universe, adds greater complexity to the same. ”

“ Once more, if Aether is gravitative, then every atom and particle in the universe, as well as every planet, and sun, and star, exert an attractive power over the Aether, so that every atom is enveloped in an atmosphere of Aether, in the same way that every planet, and sun, and star is enveloped by the aetherial atmosphere. ”

“ The only legitimate and philosophical conclusion that we can arrive at, therefore, is that the Aether must be carried along with its central body, the earth, through being acted upon by the self-same Law of Gravitation, and for it to be so acted upon it must obviously be gravitative. It would be unphilosophical to suggest that it was held in its place by any other force, as that would be introducing a new force or law into Nature, contrary to our experience in relation to an exactly similar phenomenon of Nature. ”

“ It is clear at once that if it be not permitted to identify a point in the æther by the energy localized at it, no other means of identification can be substituted. All optical phenomena prove that the æther (outside material bodies) is perfectly homogeneous, so far as the power to contain energy is concerned; the velocity of radiation is rectilinear and uniform in whatever direction it is propagated. All portions of the æther which contain the same amount of energy are, so far as experiment can tell, perfectly similar, and there is no possible means of distinguishing between them ”

“ If it is true that the earth exerts an attractive influence upon the surrounding Aether by means of which it is held in its place relatively to the earth, then it is equally true that Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune also exert gravitating or attractive influences upon the surrounding Aether, in the same way that they do upon their own atmospheres. ”

“ The question of whether the aether is carried along by the earth’s motion has been considered from the early days of the undulatory theory of light. In reviving that theory at the beginning of the 19th century, Thomas Young stated his conviction that material media offered an open structure to the substance called aether, which passed through them without hindrance “like the wind through a grove of trees.” Any convection of that medium could be tested by the change of effective velocity of light, which would be revealed by a prism as was suggested by F. J. D. Arago. ”

“ Therefore, the only solution is, that the rotating atmosphere imparts some of its motion to the aetherial atmosphere, which in its turn rotates, and that that rotation is governed by exactly the same conditions as govern the relation that exists between the earth and the atmosphere. Therefore the Aether in space associated with each planet or satellite or sun or star, rotates with the rotating body, and that rotation imparts to the Aether a greater bulging out in the equatorial regions of the aetherial atmosphere than in any other part thereof. ”

“ The possession by the planet of the nebulous matter, which we have already suggested is composed of the denser parts of the Aether around the planet, would give to the planet a nebulous appearance which would satisfactorily account for the term already given. They would indeed be what Sir John Herschel suggested they were, viz, planetary nebulae. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the Aether is assumed to be continuous and non-atomic, it must be seen how exceedingly difficult it is to account for the elasticity of the Aether, as it seems absolutely impossible for a medium which is continuous, and non-atomic, to be able to transmit the waves of light with a finite velocity. ”

“ Therefore, to be strictly philosophical, one of these media must be done away with, and we may either assert that interplanetary and interstellar space is filled with electricity, or else it is filled with Aether, as it is much simpler to conceive of space being filled with one medium, than it is to suppose it to be filled with two media, which are absolutely identical in all their characteristic properties and functions. ”

“ But they, that like not this, may suppose light any other corporeal emanation, or any impulse or motion of any other medium or aethereal spirit diffused through the main body of aether, or what else they can imagine proper for this purpose. To avoid dispute, and make this hypothesis general, let every man here take his fancy; only whatever light be, I suppose it consists of rays differing from one another in contingent circumstances, as bigness, form, or vigour. ”

“ In any case, light and aether are capable of mutual interaction; aether is in fact the intermediary between light and ponderable matter. When ray of light meets a stratum of aether denser or rarer than that through which it has lately been passing, it is, in general, deflected from its rectilinear course; and differences of density of the aether between one material medium and another account on these principles for the reflexion and refraction of light. ”

“ A little more light, a little more truth, and then there will burst forth upon the hearts and minds of men the grandest and most glorious truth that Nature can reveal of her Creator, and then men shall come to know and understand the place that God holds in the Universe, such truth being advanced on its way by an atomic, universal electro-magnetic Aether which is as truly matter as our own bodies. ”

“ We have to remember that light is caused by wave motions in the Aether, so that we have here a wave motion which is travelling through the Aether at the enormous rate already quoted. Light takes about 8-1/2 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth, a distance of 92,000,000 miles. Our fastest trains do not travel 80 miles an hour, and if a train left the sun and continued its journey through space at that rate, it would take over 130 years before it reached our earth, while the light would perform the journey in 8-1/2 minutes. ”

“ Professor Challis, in his Dynamical Theory of Light and Heat, states that all the forces in Nature are different modes of pressure under different circumstances of the universal Aether, and as heat is a Force, and therefore a mode of motion, that also must be due to some form of pressure due to the vibrations of the Aether. ”

“ Not less startling is it to be told that a question may yet be raised which will challenge "the conception of a luminiferous aether, which for half a century has dominated physical science. It is possible," so we are informed, "that the field of electro-magnetic energy surrounding an electric charge in motion moves with it, and that the vibrations of light travel through this moving {74} field, instead of through an ocean of stagnant aether." ”

“ It matters not whether it be in the atomic systems whose combinations comprise all material forms of life with which we are familiar, or whether it is in the systems of planets that revolve around their central sun, or whether it be in the constellations that fill the universe, wherever we find the Aether, there we find the conditions in that Aether which will produce all the results ordinarily produced by magnetism, or with which magnetism is associated, and it is to the application of these phenomena to our solar system that we will now turn our attention. ”

“ If we take the analogy of sound, we find that sound is transmitted and propagated through matter, by waves of alternate condensation and rarefaction, and that transmission is regulated by the relation of the density of the medium to its elasticity. Light has been proved to be due to the undulatory wave-motions of the Aether, and in order to account for the transmission of the wave-motion, it is essential that the Aether should possess the property of elasticity. ”