The Mind. 995 



does nothing whatever toward the explanation or elucidation of the sub- 

 ject, but simply gets rid of it by banishing it to the obscure regions of 

 mystery and myth? The notion of an immaterial substance originated 

 before there was any adequate idea of the nature of energy, and its 

 relation to matter, before the discovery of molecular motion, and 

 when all matter was thought of and spoken of as dead. It was not con- 

 ceived possible that this dead matter could ever get itself into motion, 

 but must have been started by some powerful, personal being. With 

 such notions of matter it could not be conceived that sensation or con- 

 sciousness could in any way be connected with it. But ideas of matter 

 have undergone a radical change within the last two or three generations. 

 When matter is mentioned now, our thought of it is no longer confined 

 to iron by the ton, or gravel by the wagon load. We have become 

 familiar with the chemists' conception of atoms and molecules, a mole- 

 cule of water being according to the estimate of Sir W. Thompson, less 

 than one, two hundred and fifty millionth ( 250 * 000 ) part of an inch 

 in diameter 1 , and with the physicists' conception of the activity of these 

 molecules when under the influence of force applied from without. 

 The conception too of the existence of an all pervading ether as the ve- 

 hicle of the energy which creates in us the sensations of light and heat, 

 is familiar to all. Then we are under the necessity of conceiving of 

 the matter whose motion constitutes the phenomena of electricity and 

 magnetism supposed by many to be the same all pervading ether. 



We very soon exhaust our powers of imagination when we attempt 

 the conception of these indisputably material entities and their motions. 

 J. P. Cooke says of the molecules of a gas that they are as real as the 

 planets. Thompson says they are ' ' pieces of matter of measurable 

 dimensions with shape, motion, and laws of action, intelligible sub- 

 jects of scientific investigation." All the enormous energy of the 

 sun's radiations has for untold ages been whisked away to every part of 

 the universe, the portion falling upon our pigmy earth and her sister 

 planets, being but an infinitessimal part of the whole. Yet inconceiv- 

 ably vast as it is, it has all passed from particle to particle of this ether, 

 a substance which delivers the impact of its motion to our senses of 

 sight and feeling at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, but which 

 when at rest has never manifested itself to a single one of our senses; 

 and it allows the earth to rush through it at the rate of more than 

 1,100 miles a minute, without causing a perceptible retardation to its 

 motion. If we attempt to give ourselves a realizing sense of the facts 

 and figures relating to this substance ether, we at once find our compre- 

 hension too narrow to reach around them. Thus according to the table 

 on page 383, we find that the length of the wave of this substance which 



1 Thompson estimates the no. of molecules of any gas in a cubic inch at 100,000,000,- 

 000,000,000,000,000,01- 10 23 ; 23d power of 10. 



