223 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Eruption 

 Evidence 



1083. ETHER PERVADES ALL BOD- 

 IES Transparency to Different Colors Union 

 of Transparent Substances Producing Dark- 

 ness. The luminiferous ether fills stellar 

 space; it makes the universe a whole, and 

 renders possible the intercommunication of 

 light and energy between star and star. But 

 the subtle substance penetrates farther; it 

 surrounds the very atoms of solid and liquid 

 substances. Transparent bodies are those 

 which are so related to the ether that the 

 waves of light can pass through them with- 

 out transference of motion to their atoms. 

 In colored bodies, certain waves are ab- 

 sorbed; but those which give the body its 

 color pass without absorption. Through a 

 solution of sulfate of copper, for example, 

 the blue waves speed unimpeded, while the 

 red waves are destroyed. When a luminous 

 beam is sent through this solution, the red 

 end of its spectrum is cut away. Red glass, 

 on the contrary, owes its color to the fact 

 that its substance can be traversed freely by 

 the longer undulations of red, while the 

 shorter waves are absorbed. Placed in the 

 path of the light, it leaves merely a vivid 

 red band upon the screen. The blue liquid, 

 then, cuts off the rays transmitted by the 

 red glass ; and the .red glass cuts off those 

 transmitted by the liquid; by the union of 

 both we ought to have perfect opacity, and 

 so we have. When both are placed in the 

 path of the beam, the entire spectrum disap- 

 pears ; the union of the two partially trans- 

 parent bodies producing an opacity equal to 

 that of pitch or metal. TYNDALL Heat a 

 Mode of Motion, lect. 11, p. 304. (A., 1900.) 



1084. ETHER PERVADING SPACE 

 A DOCTRINE OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

 Held by Ionic Philosophers To Be Self- 

 luminous. In the dogmas of the Ionic phi- 

 losophy of Anaxagoras and Empedocles, this 

 ether differed wholly from the actual (den- 

 ser) vapor-charged air which surrounds the 

 earth, and " probably extends as far as the 

 moon." It was of " a fiery nature, a bright- 

 ly beaming, pure fire-air, of great subtlety 

 and eternal serenity." 



Considered as a medium filling the regions 

 of space, the ether of Empedocles presents 

 no other analogies excepting those of sub- 

 tlety and tenuity with the ether, by whose 

 transverse vibrations modern physicists have 

 succeeded so happily in explaining, on pure- 

 ly mathematical principles, the propagation 

 of light, with all its properties of double re- 

 fraction, polarization, and interference. The 

 natural philosophy of Aristotle further 

 teaches that the ethereal substance pene- 

 trates all the living organisms of the earth 

 both plants and animals; that it becomes 

 in these the principle of vital heat, the very 

 germ of a psychical principle, which, unin- 

 fluenced by the body, stimulates men to in- 

 dependent activity. These visionary opin- 

 ions draw down ether from the higher re- 

 gions of space to the terrestrial sphere, and 

 represent it as a highly rarefied substance 

 constantly penetrating through the atmos- 



phere and through solid bodies; precisely 

 similar to the vibrating light-ether of Huy- 

 gens, Hooke, and modern physicists. But 

 what especially distinguishes the older Ionic 

 from the modern hypothesis of ether is the 

 original assumption of luminosity, a view, 

 however, not entirely advocated by Aristotle, 

 The upper fire-air of Empedocles is expressly 

 termed brightly radiating and is said to be 

 seen by the inhabitants of the earth in cer- 

 tain phenomena, gleaming brightly through 

 fissures and chasms which occur in the 

 firmament. HUMBOLDT Cosmos, vol. iii, p. 

 32. (H., 1897.) 



1085. ETHICS UNIVERSALLY ASSO- 

 CIATED WITH RELIGION Religion an 

 Everlasting Reality. Universally since that 

 [primeval] time the notion of ethics has 

 been inseparably associated with the notion 

 of religion, and the sanction for ethics has 

 been held to be closely related with the 

 world beyond phenomena. There are philos- 

 ophers who maintain that with the further 

 progress of enlightenment this close relation 

 will cease to be asserted, that ethics will be 

 divorced from religion, and that the groping 

 of the human soul after its God will be con- 

 demned as a mere survival from the errors 

 of primitive savagery, a vain and idle reach- 

 ing out toward a world of mere phantoms. 

 I mention this opinion merely to express un- 

 qualified and total dissent from it. I be- 

 lieve it can be shown that one of the strong- 

 est implications of the doctrine of evolution, 

 is the everlasting reality of religion. FISKE. 

 Through Nature to God, pt. ii, ch. 9, p. 110. 

 (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



1086. EVIDENCE MULTIPLIES FOR 

 WILLING MINDS Fall of Meteorites in 

 France Attested by Academicians Then 

 Abundant Instances the World Over. 

 Stories of falling stones, then, kept arising 

 from time to time during the last century as 

 they had always done, and philosophers kept 

 on disbelieving them as they had always 

 done, till an event occurred which suddenly 

 changed scientific opinion to compulsory be- 

 lief. 



On the 26th of April, 1803, there fell, not 

 in some far-off part of the world, but in 

 France, not one alone, but many thousand 

 stones, over an area of some miles, accom- 

 panied with noises like the discharge of ar- 

 tillery. A committee of scientific men 

 visited the spot on the part of the French 

 Institute, and brought back not only the 

 testimony of scores of witnesses or auditors, 

 but the stones themselves. Soon after stones 

 fell in Connecticut, and here and elsewhere, 

 as soon as men were prepared to believe, 

 they found evidence multiplied; and such 

 falls, it is now admitted, tho rare in any 

 single district, are of what may be called 

 frequent occurrence as regards the world at 

 large for, taking land and sea together, the 

 annual stone-falls are probably to be counted 

 by hundreds. LANGLEY New Astronomy, ch. 

 6, p. 186. (H. M. & Co., 1896.) 



