Taking Lorentz’s theory as it stands, one cannot help but recognise that this accumulation of hypotheses postulated ad hoc makes it painfully artificial. According to the theory, the ether must be regarded as stagnant and the earth as moving through it with some definite velocity. This velocity must, however, remain eternally unknowable to us. Its elusiveness arises from the slowing down of time and the FitzGerald contraction, in the case of the simplest electromagnetic experiments; in the case of experiments dealing with dielectrics and conductors, we have to appeal to still more complicated adjustments pertaining to the constitution of matter. But although forever indiscernible, our velocity through the ether was a reality; it was there, and had it not been for all these compensating effects, it would have been observed. All the forces of the cosmos appeared to have conspired to deprive us of a knowledge we were so anxious to obtain, namely, the velocity of our planet through the ether. The existence of the FitzGerald contraction, holding in exactly the same degree for all bodies, was an instance of this marvellous conspiracy of nature. Even if we admitted that all matter were electronically constituted, and that the constituent electrons became flattened as a result of their motion through the ether, it was still impossible to conceive of an identical flattening for all bodies, whether rigid or soft, unless we assumed that an appropriate adjustment had also taken place in the other factors entering into the constitution of matter (elastic forces, etc.). The whole theory [Pg 138] was unsatisfactory in the extreme. If Nature was blind, by what marvellous coincidence had all things been so adjusted as to conceal a velocity through the ether? And if Nature was wise, she had surely other subjects to attend to, more worthy of her consideration, and would scarcely be interested in hampering our feeble attempts to philosophise. In Lorentz’s theory, Nature, when we read into her system all these extraordinary adjustments ad hoc, is made to appear mischievous; it was exceedingly difficult to reconcile one’s self to finding such human traits in the universal plan. Possibly more space than was needed has been devoted to a discussion of these difficulties of pre-Einsteinian physics, but the purpose of these lengthy explanations has been to show that science was confronted with an exceedingly difficult situation. Before proceeding to a study of Einstein’s solution, we must mention a tentative hypothesis put forward by the Swiss physicist Ritz.