A WONDERFUL WORLD 



is like a knot in the ether. The ether is the fluid of 

 fluids, yet its tension or strain is so great that it is 

 immeasurably more dense than anything else — a 

 phenomenon that may be paralleled by a jet of 

 water at such speed that it cannot be cut with a 

 sword or severed by a hammer. It is so subtle or im- 

 ponderable that solid bodies are as vacuums to it, 

 and so pervasive that all conceivable space is filled 

 with it; "so full," says Clerk Maxwell, "that no 

 human power can remove it from the smallest por- 

 tion of space, or produce the slightest flaw in its in- 

 finite continuity." 



The scientific imagination, in its attempts to mas- 

 ter the workings of the material universe, has thus 

 given us a creation which in many of its attributes 

 rivals Omnipotence. It is the sum of all contradic- 

 tions, and the source of all reality. The gross matter 

 which we see and feel is one state of it; electricity, 

 which is without form and void, is another state of 

 it; and our minds and souls, Sir Oliver Lodge inti- 

 mates, may be still another state of it. But all these 

 theories of physical science are justified by their 

 fruits. The atomic theory of matter, and the ki- 

 netic theory of gases, are mathematically demon- 

 strated. However unreal and fantastic they may 

 appear to our practical faculties, conversant only 

 with ponderable bodies, they bear the test of the 

 most rigid and exact experimentation. 



63 



