Ether (Space); Force and energy; Gravitation; Matter
with our experience and observation, as no body pushes or pulls another
body, be it what it may, unless both bodies are joined together by some
medium which transmits the push or the pull. Professor Lodge, in his
_Modern Views of Electricity_, has illustrated from an electrical
standpoint how the pressure and tension in any electrical field may be
transmitted from particle to particle, or atom to atom. He supposes that
a positive atom of electricity rotates in one direction while a negative
atom rotates in the opposite direction. In any electric field these
atoms are so associated with each other, that when one atom revolves, it
makes the other to revolve in the opposite direction, with the result,
that the spin or rotation is transmitted through the medium at a speed
dependent upon the density of the medium.
For fuller details of the description I must refer the reader to the
work already referred to. What I wish to call the reader's attention to
is, that the tension and pressure in this field is not transmitted
across a vacuum, in some unknown way, but is transmitted solely by a
physical medium. The action is direct, and is produced, and alone
produced, continued, and perpetuated by a physical medium which is
composed of atoms of negative and positive electricity. So that if one
body _A_ acts upon another body _B_, it acts upon _B_ solely and
entirely by the action of the atoms which form the magnetic lines of
force, and the equipotential surfaces around the electrified body, and
that action can be traced mentally step by step across the intervening
space that may exist between the two bodies. It is in an exactly similar
manner, that the Attraction of Gravitation, which we conceive to be the
same as electrical attraction, is transmitted from body to body in the
atomic, molecular, planetary or stellar world. In each and every case,
the pressure and tensions, which are inseparably connected, are
transmitted by the atoms of the electro-magnetic Aether, that is, by the
positive and negative atoms of electricity of which, according to
Professor Lodge and Dr. Larmor, the Aether is composed. So that, if the
sun acts on the earth, by the centrifugal force, it acts on it solely
through and by the pressures which are originated in the atomic Aether
by the central body. If the sun attracts the earth, by the centripetal
force, that action can also be traced to the tensions that are
originated among the atoms of the electro-magnetic Aether. There is
nothing mysterious about the phenomenon in either case, as by accepting
this view of an atomic Aether with its dual character of positive and
negative electricity, the action may be traced mentally from point to
point across the so-called intervening space that exists between any two
bodies. In each and every case, wherever the centripetal or centrifugal
force acts, the action is direct, because it is caused by a physical
medium, which physical medium is in direct contact with each body acted
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