RELATIONS OF ETHER TO MOLECULES 73 



stances as that they might be capable in each case of 

 raising to just so many billions of vibrations ? The waves 

 created by sodium are affected to the extent of 110 

 billion transverse vibrations more than in the case of 

 lithium, while indium adds 263 billions more than in 

 the case of sodium. Has it not then required the most 

 careful measuring and adjusting in order to add with 

 accuracy numbers of vibrations so great? The elasticity 

 of the medium is so transcendent that slight differences 

 affect it. What, then, can measure such differences with 

 the necessary nicety? What can measure and collocate 

 forces so exquisitely in entities of such sensibility ? In 

 the case of carbon, what could endow it with so many 

 potencies ? What can do these things but an intelligence 

 of extraordinary perceptive, distinguishing, and practical 

 power ? 



It is in lithium as if the teeth of a wheel and the 

 rapidity of its motions were so adjusted to those of 

 another as to create in it 395 billion revolutions in a 

 second. How difficult it would be to make two such 

 wheels ! How difficult to find suitable materials and 

 forces ! How much thought and calculation and measur- 

 ing would be necessary in the making ! And if one 

 were to find a multitude innumerable of such wheels, 

 perfectly adjusted and working with inimitable smooth- 

 ness and ease, would he say, What marvellous chances 

 meet here ! How wonderful that these should have 

 happened to exist from eternity, so measured, adjusted, 

 and collocated ! Assuredly not. He would bid such a 

 suggestion away from him with infinite contempt. In 

 nature we have the likeness of such wheels; we have 

 what produces like results. We have the molecules of 

 lithium, sodium, indium, and the multiplied points of 

 the ether. And these are so adjusted to each other that 



