62 W. A. Norton on Molecular Physics. 
which all bodies of matter directly detected by our senses either 
wholly, or chiefly consist. (2) A subtile fluid, or ether, associated 
with ordinary matter, by the intervention of which all electrical 
phenomena originate, or are produced. This electric ether, as 1 
may be termed, is attracted by ordinary matter, while its indi- 
vidual atoms repel each other. (3) A still more subtile form of 
ether, which pervades all space and the insterstices between the 
atoms of bodies. ~ This is the medium by which light is propa- 
sisting of an atom surrounded with two atmospheres, ethereal 
and electric—the former being the more attenuated, and perva- 
ding the other. We may suppose either that these two ethers 
exercise no direct action upon each other, or, what is more prob- 
that the electric atoms attract the ethereal, and are there- 
surroun ike the central atoms of the molecules, with 
real atmospheres. To this supposed fact we may attribute 
- the mutual repulsion subsisting between the electric atoms; and 
thus restrict the fundamental property of repulsion to the atoms 
gable; 
of the universal 
The conceptio 
ne 
n here formed of a molecule involves the idea 
