Page:Scientific Papers of Josiah Willard Gibbs - Volume 2.djvu/226

210 have thus been derived from the single hypothesis that the disturbance by which light is transmitted consists of solenoidal electrical fluxes, and which apply to light of different colors and to the most general case of perfectly transparent and sensibly homogeneous media not subject to magnetic action, are essentially those which are generally received as embodying the results of experiment. In no particular, so far as the writer is aware, do they conflict with the results of experiment, or require the aid of auxiliary and forced hypotheses to bring them into harmony therewith. In this respect, the electromagnetic theory of light stands in marked contrast with that theory in which the properties of an elastic solid are attributed to the ether,—a contrast which was very distinct in Maxwell's derivation of Fresnel's laws from electrical principles, but becomes more striking as we follow the subject farther into its details, and take account of the want of absolute homogeneity in the medium, so as to embrace the phenomena of the dispersion of colors and circular and elliptical polarization.