SUNLIGHT.
Its Source and Nature.
Sunlight is one of the products of that grand retro-action which is incessantly in operation between sun and earth, and is, in its intimate and essential nature, a vito-magnetic fluid[B] (or so-called magnetic). Subtle, and apparently intangible, manifesting itself rather as a presence than a real substance, it fills all the space between the sun and earth—which space may, with sufficient accuracy, be termed the solar cone or cone-space.
Its Limits.
Beyond the boundaries of the solar cone, no light is.
Pl. I. SOLAR CONE.
The Sun not Incandescent.
The apparent brightness of the sun is owing to the aggregation of the 93,000,000 of miles of this fluid which is present between the sun and earth, or to our presence in the great current of activity of the vito-magnetic force. It is therefore not due to a condition of incandescence at or near that body. It is cool and habitable, and emits no light. The brightness of the intervening fluid intercepts the view, and thus no one may behold its body. Dark spots upon its face disclose its true character.[5]
If, therefore, the sun be truly dark, the brightness of its satellites cannot be caused by light projected from its surface or surroundings. How, then, may we account for the light of the moon and planets, which do not possess a light sui generis? A new hypothesis is requisite. To frame this hypothesis is not difficult.
The New Hypothesis.
Analogy teaches us that the earth is seen from the moon and planets, even as they are seen from the earth. Yet there is nothing upon the face of the whole earth which is capable of reflecting the slightest amount of the sun's rays to those spheres. The fields, forests, rocks, and seas, only absorb light, they do not reflect it. In this phenomenon, therefore, there is no element of specular reflection. It consists rather of the lighting up of the static vito-magnetic fluid of our atmosphere, by the great solar current. The atmosphere, thus vivified, discloses our presence to those orbs, and in like manner, their presence to the inhabitants of the earth.
No Borrowed Light.
The light of the planets is therefore in no sense a borrowed light, since the action which generates and transmits it, is purely co-operative. Otherwise there could be no light at the earth, or planets.
The Sun Dependent for His own Supply.
And, indeed, the sun possesses within himself alone no element of supply of his own needed light and heat; and in his immensity and power is even dependent upon the circling orbs, for the quantity of each which is indispensable to a condition of habitation.
The bodies of the planets are in like manner invisible; we behold but the illumined atmosphere of each sphere. Thus the moon and planets, to be visible, must possess atmospheres.
Light as a Substance.
That the thunderbolt is a substance may not be questioned. That the aurora borealis, or polaris, another form of vito-magnetic fluid, is a substance is not questioned. The so-called heat-lightning, though apparently intangible, must therefore be regarded as a substance. Yet further in the remove we find the zodiacal light. Sunlight is but the same, in form of extreme tenuity. The thunderbolt passes from earth to cloud, and instantaneously changes its substantial form to one as tenuous as light; yet, in the transformation, this fluid has not lost its identity. Though unseen, it continues to exist as matter.
Velocity of Light.
While ever present, light is being incessantly replenished; its action being instantaneous. The calculations of Roëmer, founded upon observations made through spaces of 382 and 568 millions of miles of distance, should not be too confidently accepted, especially as the results of such conclusions are so vitally important. When we consider that with our best telescopes directed towards the moon, less than a quarter of a million of miles distant, nothing really satisfactory may be discerned, what value, therefore, may be attached to statements founded upon such thoroughly unreliable data?
Bradley's estimate of the velocity of light, founded upon his study of "the aberration of light," is even less worthy of consideration.
Any effort to measure such an inconceivable velocity as that claimed for light, by any means or appliances which may be devised by human ingenuity, must be regarded as futile. Descartes says: "Light reaches us instantaneously from the sun, and would do so, even if the intervening distance were greater than that between the earth and heaven."
[B] This term is employed as being most exact and comprehensive, as this fluid is now known to be the source of all life and all attractions.