206 Prof. L. T. More on the 



all the ideas usually associated with the former. We may as 

 well take the next step at once and raise the objective universe 

 on the Li^bnitzian monad or on Schopenhauer's philosophy 

 of " Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung." 



Again, the law of the conservation of matter has been one 

 of the most fertile ideas in science ; according to this law at 

 least one attribute, inertia, remains constant however all 

 others may change, thus giving continuity to material bodies 

 as well as to space and time. It is quite possible to imagine 

 an element of this new electric matter to be composed of equal 

 quantities of positive and negative electrons, v-hose motions 

 are so balanced as to make all material attributes vanish and 

 produce a quasi-annihilation of matter. 



Lastly, when the statement is made thnt the electron is 

 merely a local modification of the all-pervading aether, some 

 idea should be given us as to the nature of this modification. 

 If it is of the character of a strain, no meaning is conveyed 

 unless this strain is subject to the laws of static or kinetic 

 mechanics. But we have no knowledge of a static strain 

 which fulfils the requirements of matter, especially that it 

 muse be localized at definite points and must be uncreatablo 

 and indestructible ; of kinetic strains, the only one at present 

 available is the vortex ring of Helmholtz and Kelvin. To 

 imply that matter is electricity and that electricity is a static 

 strain or a vortex ring, is to make an impossible assumption 

 and is reasoning in a circle. If the vortex ring of matter 

 failed chiefly because Maxwell said * : " That at b^st it was 

 a mode of motion and not matter as we know it," what chance 

 has this new type to survive criticism? 



In accordance with the view taken in this paper, no hypo- 

 thesis will be made to express properties of an aether, whose 

 existence is if self incapable of scientific proof. It is, at the 

 same time, perfectly proper to distinguish space through 

 which radiant energy passes by a special name, such as the 

 sether. The amount of radiant energy in transit is best given 

 by an equation expressing conservation of energy and 

 containing a velocity and an inertia factor. The velocity 

 factor of this equation, most conveniently, takes the form of 

 a periodic motion, but no assumptions need be Tnade as to 

 the nature of the periodicity or of the inertia factor since 

 they also are not subject to experimental verification. 



Although matter appears to us as a continuous quantity or 

 at least as divisible far below our present methods of experi- 

 mentation, still it is convenient to give to the smallest 

 observable portion of matter some such name as protion. 

 * Encycl. Brit. : The Atom. 



