RELATIONS OF ETHER TO MOLECULES 71 



them, to render them service necessary to their useful- 

 ness. This wondrous entity fits into a wondrous place 

 in the order of the universe. How overmastering is the 

 evidence that it is the work of mind ! How impossible 

 that entities so different and yet so necessary to each 

 other's action and efficiency should have happened to 

 exist from eternity in measures and numbers so enor- 

 mous and so minutely and variously adjusted to each 

 other. 



The ether medium does not exist for itself, and it ia 

 as certain that it does not exist in order so dazzling of 

 itself. It ministers to ordinary matter, and by the glory 

 of its ministry makes known the mind from which it 

 has come. It makes manifest matter. It makes manifest 

 mind. It reveals things seen. It reveals things unseen. 

 It illumines the universe with physical light. It shows 

 it filled with the light of an understanding in which is no 

 darkness. 



The relations existing between the ether and the mole- 

 cules reveal their order also and the perfection of their 

 action. We have seen that the ether is so constituted 

 that its motions are not reflected diffusely by the nitrogen 

 and oxygen of the atmosphere. It may be as justly 

 argued that the molecules of these gases are so consti- 

 tuted as not to reflect them in this manner. Other gases 

 are of various colours, but they are of no colour. Not 

 a molecule of either of the two forwards any impression 

 to the eye. How important this is it is easy to see, and 

 how fine the adjustments involved it is not difficult to 

 perceive. The molecules of chlorine, on the other hand, 

 are so adjusted to the great medium, the motions of all 

 are so similarly determined, that they absorb the same 

 waves and scatter the same. They therefore resemble 

 each other exactly in those characteristics on which the 



