162 The Evolution of Electric and Magnetic Physics. 



its importance in all electro-magnetic phenomena. While 

 originally the electrical activity seemed to be confined to 

 the battery or conducting wires of a galvanic circuit, it is 

 now believed that the ether surrounding these conductors 

 plays fully as active a part in the process of conduction ; 

 and the mind sees free space no longer void, but filled with 

 an active and responsive substance the ether. It looks 

 almost as if matter were inert in comparison with the ether 

 wh;ch surrounds it. Once more in the evolution of thought 

 the tide of unbelief has turned, and we hold, under some- 

 what altered premises, the dictum that Torricelli refuted 

 namely, that " Nature abhors a vacuum." The properties 

 of the ether almost threaten to surpass in interest and im- 

 portance the properties of the matter it environs and per- 

 vades. 



3. The evidence in favor of the proposition that light is 

 a vibratory disturbance in the ether of an electro-magnetic 

 nature is such as almost to amount to demonstration. 

 When this shall be generally accepted, the whole domain of 

 optics and radiant energy will be enrolled as one depart- 

 ment and property of electro-magnetic physics. 



Difficult as it is to clearly apprehend the course of evolu- 

 tion in the near past, where events press upon us in a narrow 

 bounding throng, and the workers at the great loom of his- 

 tory yet stand by the mesh their hands have helped to 

 weave, how still more difficult it is to guess the future ! 

 The prospect that opens is, however, a brilliant one. We 

 may well believe that in science the same evolutionary pro- 

 cess which has united electricity and magnetism, and weld- 

 ed both with radiation, will continue to magnify, simplify, 

 and unify. Contrary to the course of evolution in the or- 

 ganic world, " from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, 

 the simple to the complex," the development of science is 

 from the heterogeneous to the homogeneous, from the com- 

 plex to the simple, and just as the evolutionary course of 

 religious belief was from polytheism to monotheism, so with 

 every fresh acquisition science becomes greater and grander 

 and more succinct. 



In the arts, electricity is destined, even apart from future 

 discoveries, to take into its own hands the distribution of 

 power. The telegraph has conquered time, and the electric 

 motor is born to triumph over space ; but whether we watch 

 the vibration of the telegraphic recorder that spells its 

 message across the sea, or watch the electric car, urged by 



