4 NOMOS. 



and electricity do not enter into the perfect idea of 

 that law by which the earth is ruled. In a word, 

 there are signs abroad which seem to show that the 

 experience of the laboratory has a far wider scope 

 than was at first apparent. 



Here, then, is the prospect of other changes in the 

 creed of science ; for if this be so, it is at once apparent 

 that many changes must take place in the mode of 

 interpreting several cosmical phenomena. If the 

 law of the laboratory if we may use this term to 

 express that central law to which the philosophy of 

 the laboratory appears to point be a universal law, 

 it is necessary that space should be filled, not merely 

 with imponderable ether, but with actual matter ; for, 

 according to the law of the laboratory, light, heat, 

 and their companion phenomena are the effects of a 

 definite change in matter ; and if there be ponder- 

 able matter in space, there must be a resistance to 

 the motions of the heavenly bodies which is not sup- 

 posed to exist at present. At first sight, then, it 

 would seem that the law of the laboratory cannot 

 be a universal law. But this is not a necessary con- 

 clusion. 



Now, unquestionably, the orbital movements of 

 the heavenly bodies may be accounted for by sup- 

 posing that these bodies were set in motion by a 

 tangential impulse in free space, and then left to the 

 action of the force of gravity. The evidence is un- 

 impeachable. But this is not the only explanation. 

 On the contrary, it may be shown that the heavenly 

 bodies must rotate upon their axes and course on- 

 wards in orbits of various eccentricity if they obey 



