W. A. Norton on Molecular Physics. 171 
conceded, admit of satisfactory explanation on the hypothesis 
of an electric fluid, or ether, intimately associated with mat- 
ter; and that no successful attempt has yet been made to ac- 
count for the simplest of these phenomena on any other hy- 
pothesis. Some physicists, it is true, are striving to do away 
with the supposed electric fluid;—prompted by the conjecture 
that Nature must operate by some simpler method, and work 
out all her wonderful diversity of phenomena by one, or at 
most, two forms of matter. Shall we wait until these physic- 
generalizations embodied in it must have their counterparts 
hich it will 
gressed. Preconceived notions of what matter must be in its 
essential nature, or by what form of matter, or varieties of 
method, Nature must operate have thus far contributed little to 
its advancement: and in fact when we consider that we posi- 
tively know and can know nothing, a priori, with regard to the 
.€ssential nature and condition of matter, and its means and 
mode of operation, such notions are entitled to little credit. 
_ Our author implies in the remarks above quoted that the ex- 
istence of an electric ether is not only not an “established truth,” 
but is to be ranked among those questionable notions that 
e has given the subject only leads him to confirm the 
Substantial truth of what he would here seem to discredit— 
for, 88 we have already seen, his “repulsive envelope” is es- 
sentially my ‘electric atmosphere.” 
Why should we admit two wthereal fluids which are both re- 
pulsive and only differ in subtlety. - 
Prof. Bayma and myself agree in admitting the existence 
two kinds of matter,—attractive and repulsive; and as 
We have seen, three forms of matter. Is it inherently any less 
Seg that two of these should be repulsive and one attrac- 
me ¢, than as he assumes that two should be attractive and one 
oo :—viz., gross matter and the ether of space attrac- 
nae and the elements of the “repulsive envelope” repulsive. 
the supposition that the two etheral fluids differ in subtlety, 
of 
