RELATIONS OF ETHER TO MOLECULES 67 



done, no powerful mechanism can be devised, unless 

 there be great laws and principles, and the most beautiful 

 and ordered relations, in the substances with which it is 

 necessary to work. Mind cannot set in order that which 

 is not susceptible of order, cannot adapt that whose own 

 fundamental nature does not render it adaptable. 



The illumination of the universe is a vast and mar- 

 vellous work. It is accomplished with ideal perfection. 

 Nowhere is there a flaw, an imperfection, or a hitch. It 

 is done with charming simplicity, with magnificent ease 

 and smoothness of working. It is indescribably great. 

 An ether element fills all known space. The sun of our 

 system, and suns in billions, form centres of force, which 

 act upon it, and create light-giving waves. These travel 

 with a velocity of 11,000,000 miles in a minute. They 

 advance in straight lines, so that there is no straightness 

 like theirs. Each point of the ether vibrates transversely 

 hundreds of billions of times in a second. Each coloui 

 has its own special number of hundreds of billions. The 

 number of beams striking a surface small as a leaf cannot 

 be told. The number beating on half the globe is enor- 

 mously beyond every form of expression. Yet even they 

 are few compared with the multitude sent forth from the 

 sun. And every sun of the multitude existing is doing 

 the same work. And at every point the great ether sea 

 plays its part with a faithfulness unsurpassable. 



And when the rays of our sun reach the earth, they 

 do not spend their strength in revealing themselves, they 

 do not make the molecules of the atmosphere to glisten 

 or glow with colour ; they make manifest the matter of 

 the earth. They are in many ways adjusted to its mole- 

 cules, so as. to be reflected, refracted, scattered, and 

 absorbed. The various elements and combinations are 

 differently adjusted for the ether action, so that by most 



