﻿276 Prof. J. Bayma on the Fundamental 



there are two forms or kinds of matter, attractive and repulsive. 

 But this can hardly be his meaning : as he distinguishes kind 

 horn form, and says the kinds are two, whilst he maintains that 

 the forms are three. 



Lastly we might understand the word form as meaning the 

 result of a kind of composition. But if we accept this meaning, 

 the forms of matter cease to be three, and they become as many 

 as there are primitive compounds in nature. And thus the as- 

 sumption of three forms of matter can find no explanation in my 

 doctrine, whatever the meaning we attach to the word form. 



This shows well enough how much Professor Norton is mis- 

 taken when he says that I " proved to my own satisfaction that 

 matter does in fact exist in three essentially different forms." 

 I had said indeed that luminiferous aether is "a special sub- 

 stance," in the same sense as I say that oxygen and carbon are 

 special substances, but I never said nor implied that aether was 

 "a distinct form of matter;" I rather taught the contrary by 

 stating (Molecular Mechanics, p. 174) that aether, though a spe- 

 cial substance, was not " a new specific matter." 



Professor Norton's second answer runs as follows : 



" But to reply to others who may be disposed to adopt the objec- 

 tion urged No one will deny the existence of gross or ponderable 

 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 established by optical pheno- 

 mena. As to electric aether, the evidence of its existence is that the 

 great body of electric and magnetic phenomena, it is generally con- 

 ceded, admit of satisfactory explanation on the hypothesis of an 

 electric fluid or aether intimately associated with matter, and that no 

 successful attempt has yet been made to account for the simplest of 

 these phenomena on any other hypothesis." 



I beg leave to say that this answer is not to the point. The 

 assertion to be proved was " that matter exists in three forms 

 essentially different." Now, in the whole passage the word form 

 is not even to be found : and that which has no place in the pre- 

 misses, cannot find place in the conclusion. 



It is not my intention to deny that there is something in 

 nature which corresponds to what Professor Norton calls " gross 

 matter :" yet I believe that the name of gross matter is calcu- 

 lated to engender misconceptions with regard to a subject about 

 which men are already too much biased by the common preju- 

 dices of infancy. Gross matter ! What is it ? It is said to be 

 that which possesses u all the mechanical attributes of matter." 

 I will not say the contrary : but I may remark that material 

 substance as such has no other mechanical attributes besides 

 activity, passivity, and inertia : and these are to be found in aether 



