Page:Young - Outlines of experiments and inquiries respecting sound and light (1800).djvu/28

 and others transmitted, appears in this system to be wholly inexplicable. That a medium resembling, in many properties, that which has been denominated ether, does really exist, is undeniably proved by the phænomena of electricity; and the arguments against the existence of such an ether throughout the universe, have been pretty sufficiently answered by. The rapid transmission of the electrical shock, shows that the electric medium is possessed of an elasticity as great as is necessary to be supposed for the propagation of light. Whether the electric ether is to be considered as the same with the luminous ether, if such a fluid exists, may perhaps at some future time be discovered by experiment; hitherto I have not been able to observe that the refractive power of a fluid undergoes any change by electricity. The uniformity of the motion of light in the same medium, which is a difficulty in the theory, favours the admission of the ; as all impressions are known to be transmitted through an elastic fluid with the same velocity. It has been already shown, that sound, in all probability, has very little tendency to diverge: in a medium so highly elastic as the luminous ether must be supposed to be, the tendency to diverge may be considered as infinitely small, and the grand objection to the system of vibration will be removed. It is not absolutely certain, that the white line visible in all directions on the edge of a knife, in the experiments of and of Mr., was not partly occasioned by the tendency of light to diverge. hypothesis, of the transmission of light by an agitation of the particles of the refracting media themselves, is liable to strong objections; according to this supposition, the refraction of the rays of light, on entering the atmosphere from the pure ether which he describes, ought