18 THOUGHTS ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 
a tendency to obscure the fundamental facts under a cloud 
of words about the wave theory. The wave is made up of, 
and is caused by, the movement of many small portions of 
matter. 
. The stellar and planetary bodies, rushing and revolving in 
their orbits, and interwhirling in themselves, through the 
ether, form vortices of immense scope and great power in the 
ether, that sweep all smaller bodies within their influence 
towards the path of the star or planet. Corpuscles, atoms, 
etc., are merely infinitely smaller bodies, all making their 
smaller vortices in the ether by their movement. Other 
corpuscles, atoms, etc., moving at the same speed, approach 
and coalesce; the same speed keeps them moving together, 
assisted by the action of the vortical force set up by their 
movements, which helps to bind them more firmly into 
groups, until the groups are broken up by groups of greater 
weight or speed, when new combinations are made. This 
explanation accounts for natural phenomena in a simple, 
clear, and natural manner, and eliminates confusing and 
non-explanatory terms, substituting in place thereof material 
motion and vortical force. 
Let Z=an atom or molecule, Y=the ether force that 
keeps Z in position, A=a celestial body, B=the ether force 
that keeps it in position; then X million times Y will keep 
X million times Z in position. Therefore, as A=Z x X 
millions, and B=Y x X millions, B will (other things being 
equal) be sufficient to perform its function of keeping A in 
position. 
Imagine you have before you silver sand, mineral salts, 
water, a creeper, a tree, and also a hemp and a wire rope. 
If gravitation as conceived in the Newtonian philosophy 
was a fact, the particles of sand would have a tendency to 
cohere in the form of rock; but it gives no evidence of any 
