246 ROCHESTER ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. [Feb. 26. 



produce electrical effects in the telephone. In the absence of such 

 an appriratus they remain sound waves only, and do not have any 

 such effects as appear in the case supposed. The energy that 

 produces the currents resides not in the pulsations of the air, which 

 have no power whatever in and by themselves to traverse the 

 conducting wire, but in the molecular stresses and balancings existing 

 in the materials of which the telephone is composed, which depend 

 upon the possession by the apparatus itself of the requisite physical 

 properties which in this case are of an electrical nature. 



So when ether waves fall upon particular substances it is 

 molecular or atomic motion only that is imparted. The effect 

 produced whether chemical, electrical, or vital depends entirely upon 

 the constitution of the substance receiving the impulse. It is the 

 nature of the properties of the species of matter of which it is 

 composed and not of those of the ether of space which determines 

 what will be the result of the molecular motions imparted This 

 brings us to the consideration of the question as to what is meant by 

 a property of matter. 



The geometrical conception of matter and force which deals 

 only with external forms and space relations is wholly inadequate. 

 Matter thus conceived of is inert, and logically some form of inertia 

 is its only property. Those who hold this view are obliged to assume 

 that there is no lost motion but simply transformation of motion 

 throughout the universe producing constant atomic agitation and 

 ether pulsation. Accordingly there can be no motion without pre- 

 existing motion and so on ad infinitum. It would seem very difficult, 

 however, to analyze such a property of matter as elasticity into 

 component motions in accordance with any prmciple of inertia which 

 requires that the motion should be in straight lines. Nor will the 

 assumption of the existence of complicated vortical motions whose 

 origination is unexplained help the case. Atomic motions of any 

 sort that can be conceived of would be subject to deformation by 

 elastic strain as much as the shape of the body itself, and it becomes 

 necessary to assume that there is some force or property inherent in 

 the atoms that causes them to seek readjustment to a particular form 

 whether they be in motion or at rest among themselves. This force 

 whatever it may be although it maintains a certain form of arrange- 

 ment among the atoms cannot be conceived of as having dimensions 

 and shape. It is one of the properties of matter that does not come 

 under the category of space relations. 



