HOW PHENOMENA ARE INTERPRETED. 79 



tion of how such unlike phenomena as feeling and material 

 movements can be related is great, but we have plenty of evi- 

 dence that we have grown into conceptions which are apparently 

 as unlikely as these. For instance, what possible relations 

 can there be between turning a crank and that which is 

 called electricity, which travels in a wire or in an empty 

 space with the velocity of 186,000 miles a second, glows like 

 the sun in an arc lamp, and will serve for a chat with a 

 friend in Chicago as if you were face to face. Yet there 

 is now known to be a direct and quantitative relation, and the 

 explanation of the whole thing lies in the properties of the 

 atoms themselves — properties which were unimagined not 

 a long time ago. So as knowledge has advanced the whole 

 drift of it has been to enlarge the possibilities of matter itself, 

 and this reflection serves to make it more and more probable 

 that all the other phenomena exhibited by matter are due to its 

 inherent qualities. We must wholly discard the old view of it 

 and adopt a larger view. One must ask again what is the pos- 

 sible nature of matter, and can any one tell enough about it to 

 help on a step in the process, — especially to bridge such a 

 chasm as appears between mind and matter } 



We do have a new conception o£ matter which is now so well 

 vouched for that both the physicists and chemists are inter- 

 preting phenomena by its means. This is that the atoms of 

 matter are vortex rings in the ether and made of ether itself ; 

 they are simply whorls of ether and are not something else 

 created in ether, and all the properties it manifests are due not 

 more to the structure than to the stuff it is made of ; and if this 

 be the fact, the whole controversy concerning matter and its 

 properties and possibilities becomes a controversy about some- 

 thing else than matter, namely, the ether. It is discovered that 

 the characteristics of matter do not belong to the ether, and 

 that nearly, if not all terms we use to describe matter phenom- 

 ena are wholly inapplicable to the ether ; indeed, we are without 

 proper terms to describe them. Matter as we know it is made 

 up of particles ; ether is not. Matter is more or less porous ; the 

 ether is without interstices, — it is called a continuous medium 

 and is boundless in extent. Matter is subject to friction, and 



