XV 
GREAT QUESTIONS IN LITTLE 
I. THE ETHER 
O speak of invisible rays of light seems a con- 
tradiction of terms, and so it would be were 
light rays an objective reality instead of an experi- 
ence of our consciousness. The dark, or heat, rays 
of the spectrum are as real as the light rays, but we 
see them not because our eye is not attuned to 
them, or in their key. It is said that the Leyden 
jar emits rays that obey all the laws of optics, but 
the eye is no wiser for it. Light is created in the 
eye, as sound is born in the ear. Certain vibrations 
in the ether give us a sensation that we name 
“light”; certain vibrations in the air give us sensa- 
tions that we call “sound.” All the color in nature 
is the result of what the vibrations reflected from 
objects do to the eye, just as all we call sound is the 
result of what certain mechanical disturbances in 
the air do to the ear. There is no color in the dark 
and there is no sound in a vacuum. We can set up 
a mechanical disturbance in the air, but we cannot 
set up a mechanical disturbance in the ether, be- 
cause the ether is not a tangible body. It defies 
all our definitions of tangible bodies. No device or 
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