74 ONTOLOGY. 



another medium, it always remains by preference in the 

 neutral medium; therefore reflexion originates also by 

 the air, when the light passes out of glass very obliquely 

 into it. 



Operation of the terrestrial Elements upon Light. 



DECOMPOSITION OF LIGHT COLOURS. 



354. It results from all this, that light cannot enter 

 unchanged into mutual operation with matter. The 

 tension of aether changes itself in matter. This change 

 of light through the influence of matter is a debilitation 

 of the tension of aether and lastly its complete cessation. 

 There can be therefore no absolutely transparent matter ; 

 the aether only is this absolutely transparent matter. 

 The denser a material is, by so much the more will it be 

 capable of suppressing in itself the tension of light. The 

 most transparent bodies must also become with a greater 

 density adiaphanous or opaque, because the Metallic 

 increases in them. 



355. This suppression or expiration of the tension of 

 light in bodies has received, as likewise proceeding from 

 the mechanical theory of light, the name of absorption. The 

 absorption is not a mechanical adherence of the particles 

 of light in the pores of bodies. There are no pores for 

 light, and this requires none. 



356. The absorption or decrescence of light is a retro- 

 gression of light into the indifference of aether, into dark- 

 ness. Light in conflict with matter does not continue 

 light, but becomes a mean condition between light and 

 darkness. 



357. The substratum of light, the aether, has two 

 extreme conditions, and only two, the tensed and the 

 non-tensed; the one is the light, the other the dark. 

 Between the two, however, are the mediate conditions of 

 twilight or " clare-obscure." The light aether emits 

 rays, the dark does not ; the mediate conditions are half 

 the two. The light condition is the clear unsullied 

 light, the absolute translucency ; the darkness is the 



