A TOMS. 



surrounded by a still more subtle substance, 

 which they have named " ether." Some, 

 however, maintain that the ether is itself 

 the all-pervading primitive material sub- 

 stance, and that the atoms were formed out 

 of it, and are not solid particles, but centres 

 of movement, infinitesimal whirlpools in 

 the ether. 5 And others are of opinion that 

 the atoms are elastic spheres filled with 

 ether. (Hovenden.) 



In the fluid state of substances it is sup- 

 posed that the hard atoms are able to move 

 about freely in the ether ; that in solids 

 they are attracted or pressed closely to- 

 gether ; whilst in gases they are separated 

 to considerable distances from one another. 

 As vortices in the ether it is supposed that 

 in liquids they are separate from one 

 another ; in solids they are in a state of 

 contraction and pressed into one another ; 

 and in gases they are expanded as well as 

 separate. As elastic spheres it is supposed 

 that in liquids they are in a state of separa- 

 tion from one another, simply filled with 

 ether ; in solids that they are infolded, 



5 " What knowledge we do have, and the inferences that 

 may properly be drawn from it, all tend to convince that 

 matter and ether are most intimately related to each other, 

 and that some such theory as the vortex-ring theory of 

 matter must be true." DOLBEAR, p. 42. (See note to p. 21 .) 



