104 
explanation of certain phenomena of electricity and mag- 
netism (p. 109) ; but this has failed. For what shall we 
think as to the luminiferous ether itself? (p. 111). Is it per- 
fectly transparent? or does it absorb light at all, and then re- 
distribute it ? Is it subject to gravity ? Beyond the fact of 
its existence — (a fact inferred by us from the phenomena of the 
passage of radiant energy from one body to another), — we know 
nothing. These hypotheses no doubt tend in every case to 
suggest an invisible Universe (p. 117), into which 
Nothing is “ Matter ” itself may die out ; but it would be an 
of'tlle intimate invisible Universe not conditioned like the visible ; 
nature °t a nd s0 we s ] lcm ld be even driven to the Uncondi- 
Matter. # # . , . , , 
tioned, break with “continuity, approach the 
Great First Cause, and defeat our hypothesis (p. 119). — Thus 
no conclusion, then, is arrived at. 
From this hesitating account of Matter, as so nearly 
nothing, yet the vehicle of everything, we proceed to Chapter V. 
None of the theories as to matter account for Inertia (p. 107), 
nor, except hypothetical!}', for gravitation (p. 109). 
CHAPTER V. 
23. The Visible Universe, in both Matter and Energy, has in 
some way (p. 65), perhaps rudely, been Developed out of the 
“invisible” (p. 120). The question is, How does it work? 
How further “develop,” — in Matter, Form, and even Life? 
First : Heat, we observe, is a perpetual cause of change. 
Hence material development. The “elements,” 
that^may^be so-called, may be dissolved (p. 123), if a high enough 
(i) chemical; j ieat f oun d. Even the atomic constituents of a 
single molecule (p. 124) may by some heat, beyond wdiat 
we possess, be separated. — (There are higher degrees of tem- 
perature, we know, in some of the stars and in the sun, 
than on our earth.) — And, secondly, just as high temperature 
or ( 2 ) Formal drives water into steam, and steam into oxygen and 
i.e. mass de- hydrogen; so carbonate of lime is decomposed into 
veiopment. jj rae and carbonic acid gas, and theoriginal particles of 
the Universe, separate from one another, being endowed with the 
force of gravitation, are possessed of potential energy, which is 
transmuted (p. 125) into heat and motion. Thus a more compli- 
cated development arises; not only chemical, as above intimated 
(p. 128), but formal or massed together; and, as in Kant’s and 
La Place’s theories of the development of the solar system, 
it may be globular. It must be observed, however, that the 
potential energy, after being converted into heat, is ultimately 
