Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/384

1846.] sense, than the matter of this our globe; for matter, according to the assumption, being made up of nuclei and force, the ether particles have in this respect proportionately more of the nucleus and less of the force.

On the other hand, the infinite elasticity assumed as belonging to the particles of the ether, is as striking and positive a force of it as gravity is of ponder able particles, and produces in its way effects as great; in witness whereof we have all the varieties of radiant agency as exhibited in luminous, calorific, and actinic phenomena.

Perhaps I am in error in thinking the idea generally formed of the ether is that its nuclei are almost infinitely small, and that such force as it has, namely its elasticity, is almost infinitely intense. But if such be the received notion, what then is left in the ether but force or centres of force? As gravitation and solidity do not belong to it, perhaps many may admit this conclusion; hut what is gravitation and solidity? certainly not the weight and contact of the abstract nuclei. The one is the consequence of an attractive force, which can act at distances as great as the mind of man can estimate or conceive; and the other is the consequence of a repulsive force, which forbids for ever the contact or touch of any two nuclei; so that these powers or properties should not in any degree lead those persons who conceive of the ether as a thing consisting of force only, to think any other ways of ponder able matter, except that it has more, and other, forces associated with it than the ether has.

In experimental philosophy, we can, by the phenomena presented, recognize various kinds of lines of force; thus there are the lines of gravitating force, those of electro-static induction, those of magnetic action, and others partaking of a dynamic character might be perhaps included. The lines of electric and magnetic action are by many considered as exerted through space like the lines of gravitating force. For my own part, I incline to believe that when there are intervening particles of matter (being themselves only centres of force), they take part in carrying on the force through the line, but that when there are none, the line proceeds through space. Whatever the