91 



Aether as being a form of matter far purer and lighter than air, so light 

 that its weight cannot be ascertained because distributed through infinite 

 space. 



During the fifteen years following the publication of Hertz's researches 

 it is probable that greater homage was paid to Ether by modern physicists 

 than was ever given it by the ancients. The ether was appealed to from 

 every quarter. Light, radiant heat and electric waves were ether waves. 

 An electric charge was an ether strain. An electric current was a phe- 

 nomenon in the ether and not in the wire in which it appeared to flow. 

 Magnetism and gravitation were phenomena of the ether. Matter itself 

 became an aggregation of ether vortices. Ether and motion were expected 

 to explain everything. Such terms as natural philosophy and physics were 

 discarded by some of our text-book writers who adopted such titles as 

 "Mattel 1 , Ether and Motion" ; "Ether Physics" ; "Ether Dynamics" ; "The 

 Mechanics of the Ether." Physics was defined as the science of motion. 



The classical mechanics of LaGrange was built on what were con- 

 sidered fundamental concepts — -mass, force, space and time. Hertz, in his 

 treatise on mechanics published in 1894, endeavored to eliminate force 

 and potential energy and reduce a universe to ether movement. Space 

 and time were not fundamental ideas, but as Kant had said, were sub- 

 jective notions. We measure time by a change of space relation ; that is, 

 a movement of a star, of the earth, of a clock hand. "In a world void of 

 all kind of movement there would not be seen the slightest sequence in 

 the internal state of substances. Hence the abolition of the relation of 

 substances to one another carries with it the annihilation of sequence and 

 of time." Thus everything was made to depend upon movement. The 

 equations of motion became the chief instruments of physical research, 

 and the criterion by which the results of experiments were interpreted. 

 Galileo lost his professorship because he dared to dispute the authority 

 of Aristotle. Daguerre was for a time placed in an asylum because he 

 said he could take a picture on a tin plate. Galvani was ridiculed by his 

 friends and dubbed "the frog's dancing master." Franklin's paper on 

 lightning conductors was considered foolish, and refused publication by the 

 Royal Society. Fifteen years ago it would have been almost as disastrous 

 for a physicist to question the authority of LaGrange or Maxwell. Not 

 only were the results of experiments subjected to mathematical analysis, 

 the direction of scientific investigation was largely so determined. The 



