PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 151 



Irrelevancy of a Vibratory Hypothesis. — The first remark that oc- 

 curs to a thoughtful student of these well-known phenomena of 

 hydro-dynamics, (upon which narrow basis some enthusiasts have 

 erected so wide a framework of induction,) is that between these re- 

 sultant motions and any actions traceable in molecular physics, — 

 (unless possibly in particular habitudes of electricity and magnet- 

 ism,) there is not even a rough analogy. And the next and most 

 obvious suggestion is that the absolute precedent condition of any 

 reciprocating action whatever is the presence of the very quali- 

 ties — cohesion and elasticity — for the production of which such 

 reciprocating action is invoked. The essential powers and char- 

 acteristics by which alone either atomic revolutions or molecular 

 impacts are for an instant rendered possible, are the inherence of 

 never-slumbering forces of attraction and repulsion. A vibratory 

 particle (assumed by the kinematist for the avoidance of incom- 

 prehensible attributes,) is itself the most astounding — the most un- 

 realizable in scientific thought, of all physical concepts. No atom 

 can perform an oscillation or a revolution, or follow any other path 

 than a straight line — excepting under the coercion of other atoms 

 attracting and repelling. The first law of motion is that of perfect 

 continuity both in amount and in direction. A shuttlecock re- 

 bounding in the empty air, would not be more conspicuously a dyn- 

 amic solecism and impossibility than the kinematist's " vibratory 

 particle." 



Those therefore who in their backward search of causation would 

 assign the origin of force to some incomprehensible aether action, 

 have no more warrant from experience, induction, or reason, than 

 those less cultured philosophers who taking "the unknown for the 

 wonderful " habitually refer each unfamiliar phenomenon (with 

 easy faith) — to "electricity."* 



mentson vibration. Nature. Aug. 18, 1881 : vol. xxiv, p. 360; and Jan. 

 19, 1882: vol. xxv, pp. 272, 273. 



Also a modification of the experiments of Prof. Bierknes, by Mr. Au- 

 gustus Stroh : (in air instead of in water.) Nature. June 8, 1882: vol. 

 xxvi, p. 134. 



*" There are not wanting those who appear very much disposed to say 

 that the conception of force itself — as part and parcel of the system of the 

 material universe — is superfluous and therefore illogical. - - - Having 

 come to regard heat, light, electricity, as modes of motion, they seem to 

 consider force itself as included in the same category, and think there is 



