The essence of Einstein’s position was that the difficulties which had beset the study of electrodynamics (we have mentioned only a small number of them) had arisen from our retention of the stagnant ether as a fundamental frame of reference; but that in view of the anomalies this attitude had brought about, the time had come to submit it to a critical analysis. After all, we knew little or nothing about the ether; why then start by stating it to be an absolute medium floating in space and hampering thereby all future progress? Why state that velocity through the ether must have a physical significance, then under the evidence of the negative experiments proceed to postulate complicated hypotheses in order to explain away the absoluteness we had ourselves introduced? Would it not be simpler to adopt a more cautious attitude, deriving knowledge from experiment rather than trying to reconcile experiment with a series of a priori beliefs which, for all we knew, might be totally erroneous? If with Einstein we follow this line of argument, we must assume that the large number of negative experiments prove conclusively that velocity through the stagnant ether or through space is physically meaningless, not only from a purely mechanical point of view, as was the belief of classical science, but from every point of view. If we accept this relativity of the ether and space for Galilean motion as a fundamental fact of nature, holding for all manner of experiments, our past difficulties are seen to be of our own making. We had endeavoured to discover that which was meaningless, and then blamed nature for tricking us and hiding it from us. Instead of saying that velocity through the ether appeared meaningless because it was meaningless, we had complicated matters by saying that velocity appeared meaningless but of course was not meaningless. Quite apart from the negative experiments, Einstein lays special stress on another type of phenomenon. Thus, whether we displace a magnet before a closed circuit or the closed circuit before the magnet, the [Pg 144] current induced in the wire is exactly the same in either case, so far as experiment can detect. That which appears relevant is the relative motion between magnet and circuit; the respective absolute velocities of magnet and circuit through the ether, which are of course different in both cases seem to be totally irrelevant.