1885.] Correspondence. 1x3 
rendered scientific Chemistry impossible. While one shred of 
ontological occultism vitiates the judgment of its votaries, true 
empiric Science must ever be heavliy handicapped by Gorgons, 
Hydras, or Chimeras dire, and can never have free scope for its 
beneficent mission to humanity. 
Robert Lewins, M.D. 
GRAVITATION. 
In the “Journal of Science” for November, 1884, a theory of 
Gravitation is put forth, which is based upon the assumption 
that there is no universal ether. The attempt at explanation, 
however, fails, inasmuch as, if even were the postulates granted, 
the result intended does not become self-evident. Gravitative 
force is inherent in every particle of matter; and it follows that 
if we rightly understood the constitution of dense particies we 
would see that their gravitative forces or tendencies result from 
their very existence. 
It is true that from the time of Newton to the present the 
problem of reducing the phenomena of gravitation to a simple 
mechanical conception has completely baffled the greatest scien- 
tific intellects. Still a postulate can be given, which if admitted 
will furnish all that is required, and there may be minds to whom 
its statement will not be unwelcome. 
When we ask the question as to what is necessary to produce 
the phenomena of gravitation, the answer at once comes that 
every particle of matter shall virtually be the centre of lines of 
uniform static tension or pressure, — extremely weak, but universal 
in extent. If, then, we postulate a universal perfectly elastic 
ether, and all bodies to be condensed ether originally produced by 
a compressive force which still continues and maintains the 
primal concentric strains which produce them, the requisite con- 
dition would be reached, and gravitative adtion would necessarily 
follow. For every material particle would be the centre of an 
ethereal stress, the force of which would be in proportion to its 
mass, and as sensible matter is immeasurably small in amount 
as compared with the pure ether, the stresses centreing in every 
body, although universal in extent, would be proportionally weak, 
and consequently such would be the manifested tractive force. 
The tendency of bodies to come together would thus really be the 
tendency to equilibration of the ethereal strains, and which-could 
only be reached by all dense matter coming together and forming 
one centre of a universal sphere of stress ; the only mode of 
counterbalancing this tendency being the force of tangential 
motion, such as we see in all cosmic systems. The apparently 
greater density of the ether within and around dense matter, as 
deduced from the phenomena of refradlion, also favours this view. 
