﻿Principles of Molecular Physics. 101 



him ; but I wish to enter here, at the outset, a demurrer against 

 the virtual claim of the superiority of his own a priori method of 

 establishing his fundamental principles. Such a claim is implied 

 in the intimation that " no one has up to this day established the 

 truth of such propositions," as will be best appreciated by those 

 who have read Professor Bayina's book. Having proved, as he 

 conceives, his propositions, and clinched each one of them with 

 a Q. E. D., he insists that obvious intimations of nature are to 

 be discarded because the stamp of infallibility cannot be put upon 

 them at once, before the test of availability in the explanation of 

 phenomena has beeu applied. It was evident from the tenor of 

 my exposition of the subject that the " established truths" re- 

 ferred to were merely regarded as having been virtually estab- 

 lished, or rendered highly probable, by the inductions of science. 

 The claim implied in Professor Bay ma^s criticism, that they re- 

 quire a higher confirmation, in fact a demonstration of their 

 truth, is not to be admitted. 

 He asks : 



On what evidence are we to grant that matter exists in three 

 forms essentially different from each other ? 



A sufficient answer to the critic himself is, that, pursuing a 

 systematic course of deduction from his leading principles and 

 his assumptions of the essential nature of matter, he actually 

 proves to his own satisfaction that matter does in fact exist in 

 essentially three different forms. He reaches the conclusion 

 that every primitive molecule consists of an attractive nucleus 

 surrounded by a repulsive envelope. My own position is that 

 every primitive molecule consists of an attractive atom of gross 

 matter surrounded by a repulsive atmosphere of electric aether. 

 The atom of gross matter answers to his attractive nucleus, the 

 electric aether to his repulsive envelope. The difference of doc- 

 trine, from the present point of view, is in name only. In an- 

 other connexion he elaborately undertakes to prove that aether 

 (i. e. the aether of space) is a " special substance." Thus he 

 makes out that there are three essentially different forms of 

 matter. 



But to reply to others who may be disposed to adopt the ob- 

 jection urged. No one will deny the existence of gross or pon- 

 derable matter, or of something which has all the mechanical 

 attributes of matter. That an aether exists in space and within 

 transparent media we may certainly regard as abundantly estab- 

 lished by optical phenomena. As to the electric aether, the evi- 

 dence of its existence is that the great body of electric and mag- 

 netic phenomena, it is generally conceded, admit of satisfactory 

 explanation on the hypothesis of an electric fluid or aether inti- 



