360 Mr. S. Tolver Preston on Method 



been invented, it is difficult to see how it could have occurred 

 to any one to imagine that the aether could be in any respect 

 different from gross matter, excepting as to the scale or the 

 degree of motion of its parts. For let it be noticed that the 

 endless assumptions that have been made about the asther — as 

 to its being essentially different from gross matter (as if there 

 were two kinds of matter in existence) , as to its being impon- 

 derable (as an occult quality) — and all the mysterious attributes 

 that have been ascribed to it, rest in their totality upon the 

 assumption of " force/' and are therefore completely gratui- 

 tous, or of the invention of those who invented " force." If 

 this notion of the existence of " force" had never been put 

 forward, it could not fail to have been seen that the only con- 

 ceivable way in which matter can be physically affected is by 

 motion-, and the supposed " laws " of nature (in the sense of 

 mere arbitrary fiats, which are based upon no dynamical con- 

 ditions, but upon the notion of " force ") can in reality only 

 be self-made " laws," grounded upon nothing else than upon 

 the phantom " force"*. The distaste that at present exists 

 for the study of that magnificent physical agent the asther, 

 may be no doubt largely attributed to the spurious mystery 

 thrown over the subject by the occult notion of " force ; " and 

 this dislike for the study would probably disappear with this 

 notion ; progress would be rendered possible. The one fact 

 of the asther forming the physical groundwork of the science 

 of optics should surely be enough to exite interest in this agent. 

 The splendid results pictured by modern inductive reason- 

 ing, whereby the asther must be inevitably regarded, by the 

 rejection of the occult notion of " action at a distance" (and by 

 the light of the principle of the Conservation of Energy), as 



* It would no doubt be unjust if the blame for these vagaries in regard 

 to "force" were entirely attached to the present generation, without 

 keeping fully in view the fact that it was inoculated by some of its pre- 

 cursors, who (in spite of the protests of Newton) imagined that without 

 any addition to knowledge, but by the mere invention of a phrase ("force," 

 " attraction," &c), they could render unnecessary the search for the cause 

 of gravitation. Rumford's words of protest against this were, " Nobody 

 surely in his sober senses has ever pretended to understand the mechanism 

 of gravitation." Huyghens, Hobbes, Leibnitz, Descartes. (Newton him- 

 self), and all the leading men of that period, as Lange relates in his notable 

 historical work Geschiclite des Materialismus (vol. i. p. 264), were of the 

 same view as Rumford. But not only (as justly remarked in this work) 

 did those who invented " force " (or " action at a distance") bring forward 

 nothing themselves, but (becoming numerically the stronger party) they 

 checked progress by throwing cold water on the efforts of those who 

 attempted to account in a rational manner for phenomena ; and it has 

 hence been a matter of considerable difficulty to attract a reasonable 

 amount of attention to any explanation whatever of the effects of gravita- 

 tion. 



