42 MATHESIS. 



i centre and thus from the sun. Were the sun to be 



1 removed, the polarity of the aether would be annulled; it 



J would be again the indifferent chaotic aether, the null and 



fi void matter. For the absolute substance to exist it 



needed not simply itself, but an identical centre and a 



dissevered periphery. Is there no peripheric mass, no 



planet, so also is the tension annulled ; centre cannot be 



without periphery, sun not without planet, nor vice 



versa. The tension of aether is thus excited by the sun 



and conditioned by the planet. The planet is not the 



principle, but the Redintegrant of the tension of aether 



by the opposition. 



186. At that part of the universe where no periphery 

 stands opposed to centre, no planet to the sun, the aether 

 is not tense, but indifferent, annulled. There can thus only 

 be columns of aether, which are rendered tense, namely, 

 those columns of aether which are found between the sun 

 and the planets. Near to the planets the aether is void 

 of action, indifferent, non-apparent. There are conse- 

 quently as many apparent aether- columns, as there are 

 heavenly bodies, that stand in the process of polarity 

 opposed to each other. These columns move with the 

 planets around the suns. The indifferent aether of the 

 world-space is, therefore, successively rendered tense, as 

 the planets move around suns, and becomes again indif- 

 ferent behind the planets. 



187. But besides this, that columns of tension only 

 exist, and therefore that the aether is nowhere active 

 as a sphere, there is still no spot in the world-space 

 where there would be only indifferent aether, nothing ; for 

 the aether consists of many globes of aether. There is 

 thus nowhere an indifferent aether, consequently nowhere 

 an empty space. The idea of the repletion of space is 

 not that of the sphere, but of the columns of tension, 

 which by their crossing in every direction form a sphere 

 only externally. 



188. That which is thought of as originally filling 

 space is not the quiescent but only the moved, tensed 

 aether. The former is the void space, the nothing. 



