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NATURE 



\JiUy 26, 1883 



their contemplation. In the ocean of universal ether are described 

 baric points and masses " nestling " together, and " nestled " in 

 their attendant or " bound " ether ones, which themselves clu .- 

 ter or " nestle" like atmospheres about them. Each .such ethro- 

 baric as-emblage is a universe, when in repose, independently of 

 the unbound and unbounded ether-ocean, which alone stands 

 aloof n, a universe by itself. And among all these the instan- 

 taneous as well as the hareand-tortoise-footed paces of time 

 take effect, and swiftly or gradually, along with many other 

 action , cluster the island-masses together more and more. 



By what rigid cord the clustering tendency to establish certain 

 iries is controlled, what struggle for existence gave their 

 present forms to elemen's and suns and planets and to the ether 

 atmospheres belonging to them, appears to he a question of just 

 the same cyclopeau vastness, and in some measure of the same 

 description, as that which presents itself to our inquiries in ani- 

 mated nature. And since it is exactly this ruling rein which sets 

 the boundaries to bodies, no harder problem can perhaps be 

 contemplated than that of denning how, at a point of contact, 

 the boundary between two dissimilar physical bodies is pre- 

 served. 



In particular the contact of our physical world of ethrobaric 

 alliances with universal ether, where to us complete and 1 er- 

 petual silence reigns, and in the other direction of inconceivable 

 hugeness instead of smallness of integration, ommon ethrobaric 

 matter'- contact with a universe just as conservative as ether is 

 of suns' and galaxies' corporeal struggles, but in this case beyond 

 the ken and vision of the most gigantic telescopes, are probably 

 par excellence the seats of strife and contest of all or at least of 

 ma ■ )" more orders and successive grades of matter than take part in 





Chain of Matter's Motor-actions. 



tbo,e between spheres of ponderable matter and their ether atmo- 

 pheres, or between the alliances of these that c institute our 

 world of physics. The arena of graphic space fur all thee 

 universes is the same, and there appears to be no difference in 

 their geometry but this, that the scales of magnitude of their 

 di integral parts proceed by absolute infinities in their pro- 

 portions to each other, but this difference is of such an 

 ,dh strict mathematical kind, corresponding to preci-ely 

 equivalent analytical and geometrical relations wherewith, sooner 

 or later, there can be very little question that it will lie pi 

 to express it, that the " excessive disintegration " contemplated 

 by Prof. Morris i^ really one of infinite disintegration. And what 

 it is which sets bounds to the universal ether by itself, so as to 

 make it a third party to the exchanges of motor-vigour between 

 iu| ings of gravitating and ether-matter (and per- 

 haps a shaping and forming link of these to the larger-statured 

 e ut ot reach of telescopic vision), unless it is a sub- 

 inns, ol more infinite di integration still than ether, an elixir oi 

 as we may style it, shaping and forming both that ether 

 it elf and its alliances with baric matter, it would certainly be 

 exceedingly difficult to say. 



Thus in the above figure it will be seen how b lUndless 

 graphic space (denoted by the inclosing circles) may all I e 

 61, ed and occupied at the same time by a continuous c 

 matter-triads consisting of matter in innumerable different 1111- 

 transuiutable grades ot fineness of disintegration, of which only 

 hree adjoining ones are physically concerned together in anyone 



of the linked world-systems of the chairfs horizons, in producing 

 that world-system's or horizon's natural phenomena. The 

 functions of ether and ''elixir," for example, can be traced in 

 the figure in giving inanimate nature its form and stature, and in 

 producing its physical phenomena in the world of ordinary 

 or common matter ; aud that of common matter and ether, again, 

 in doing the same in the larger-statured cr "Titanic" world; 

 and so on for worlds of vaster, or per contra of finer, textures 

 than our own. 



Hut as 1 reasoned al some length to show in my former letter, 

 a proper branch of geometry must be specially developed and 

 ex il red to describe even the space-rel itions of these several ma- 

 terial horizons to each other clearly ; and there is besides this the 

 part which time plays in the control and evolution of motor- 

 actions by their transmission from one horizon to another, to be 

 investigated and considered, of which it can hardly be foreseen 

 that the re^earch will be easier, although sure in due course to be 

 prosecuted successfully, than the investigation of the geometrical 

 relati ins. 



It cannot therefore be exp"cted that the beginnings of physical 

 phenomena like those of light, heat, magnetism, and electricity 

 (and of chemical phenomena in addition), due' to motor-vigours of 

 imponderable substance, should all lie easy to fathom and unveil 

 at once. But very grateful reception and approval must yet be 

 freely and fairly accorded in the meanwhile to such able and 

 successful attempts as Prof. Morris makes and proffers in his 

 letters to unravel them, as being unquestionably of very great 

 present, ami of incalculably greater prospective use and value 

 to assist in pointing out the right road and in paving the way 

 towards their final elucidation. A. S. HERSCHEL 



Newcastle-on-Tyne, June 25 



P.S. — A little more inquiry shows me that it is not essentially 

 in absolute size, but in volume-density of the integrant parts, that 

 "titanic," "ethereal," and other kinds of matter differ by in- 

 finity, and by infinity beyond infinity, Irom common ponderable 

 matter. An integrant part or " atom " of common matter, fir 

 instance, becomes by infinite expansion 1 an infinite-sized net- 

 work of extremely far-separated (countlessly numerous) titanic 

 matter-atoms, whose expansion will have rendered them all 

 ordinary substance and will have raised all their internal con- 

 stituent atomic parts, like themselves, one grade in attenuation ; 

 while the original common-matter atom itself will not in the 

 least degree lose its individuality by its enlargement of stature, 

 but will become at the same time an infinitely large common- 

 matter, and an infinitely large ether-atom. The titanic members 

 also, although an infinite-fold larger and less dense than titanic 

 atoms of a mean size, do not lose their proper relativities with 

 their normal-sized fellows, although the) acquire a new conso- 

 ciation by assumption of a lower density, with atoms of common 

 matter; so that exchange of energy or of motor-vigour by the 

 ordinary processes of diffusion and wave-moli in can in these 

 circumstances subsist between ordinary and titanic matter on a 

 footing of equality. And it is the same, in the common-matter 

 state of ethereal hyper-attenuation tor its exchanges ol 

 energy and momentum with ether- atoms of the next higher order 

 of magnitude than th 1 e which we call mean-sized. 



To how many successive grades such hyper-attenuation maybe 

 carried there is no actual evidence to show, but in the system's 

 theory it-elf there is nothing to restrict it. We must only 

 remember that each successive grade is a.i infinite' step onwards 

 in expansion or contraction; and ion-matter's atojos 



or tir -t integrant parts are known (as .Sir W. Thomson has in ist 

 clearly shown, Nature, vol. xxviii. pp. 203, 250, 274) to be of 

 finite, though of excessively small dit tension , their hyper-atten- 

 uated forms arc of an immensity whose size is mathematically 

 infinite, and we cannot therefore point to them. A sin.de com- 

 transition-form to ether-density pervades all visible 

 Its transition-form to "titanic" dm ity occupies no 

 space at all, and is graphically a material point, although 

 entropically it is infinitely composite ; and the motions of each 

 of these forms are absolutely invisible to us, but not less real an I 

 effective in their contributions of motor vigour to ordinary 

 fines of its contact with ether megaspheres, an 1 

 with titan micro-points in graphic S| ace. 



1 If time is allowed any homogeneous assemblage of matter-atoms_ to 



equalise their temperatures, the whole assemblage and its parts, consisting 



ion and of remoter matter-grades, will, 1 1 mceive. all have one an J 



;i n rate of volume expansion (*s described above) to whatever 



extent, finite or infinite, the exparsion or contraction is continued at ore 



settled temperature. 



