THE ETHER AND PONDERABLE MATTER 



ultimately running completely down, as surely as any 

 human-made machine whose power is not from time to 

 time restored. If then it shall come to pass in some 

 future age that the sun's rays fail us, the temperature 

 of the globe must gradually sink towards the absolute 

 zero. That is to say, the molecules of gas which now 

 fly about at such inconceivable speed must drop helpless 

 to the earth ; liquids must in turn become solids ; and 

 solids themselves, their molecular quivers utterly stilled, 

 may perhaps take on properties the nature of which we 

 cannot surmise. 



Yet even then, according to the current hypothesis, 

 the heatless molecule will still be a thing instinct with 

 life. Its vortex whirl will still go on, uninfluenced by 

 the dying out of those subordinate quivers that produced 

 the transitory effect which we call temperature. For 

 those transitory thrills, though determining the physical 

 state of matter as measured by our crude organs of sense, 

 were no more than non-essential incidents; but the vortex 

 whirl is the essence of matter itself. 



