The inertia of the medium has received experimental evidence from Tyndall, Maxwell, Faraday, Lodge, and others, and its compressibility has received the adherence of men like Faraday, Maxwell, and Lord Kelvin.
Then, when we come to deal with the causes of the forces involved in gravitational phenomena, we find that exactly similar hypotheses in regard to the Centrifugal Force have been postulated by Herschel, Bredichin, M. Faye, and Lebedew; while Faraday, Gauss and others have suggested the close relationship that exists between electrical and gravitational phenomena.
The physical explanation of Kepler's Laws was suggested by Kepler himself, while Huyghens, Bernoulli, Descartes, and many of their contemporaries believed in the existence of some kind of vortices.
The unity of the universe has been a dream of philosophers for generations past, and that dream is now crystallized in the definite conception of an atomic universal electro-magnetic medium, while the electrical basis of matter receives the support of such men as Crookes, J. J. Thomson, Larmor and Vogt.
Thus we learn that all the dreams and thoughts, all the hypotheses and postulates of old-world as well as present-day philosophers find their consummation and ultimate realization in one universal, atomic, electro-magnetic medium.
If this fact does not stamp the theory with that authority which is undeniably associated with the names of some of the scientists quoted, then all the greatest men in the scientific world have lived and toiled, thought and dreamed in vain, while the priceless gems of their imagination and research are treated as worthless and valueless.
Again, what shall we say of the discoveries of to-day?
What is the key to the greatest scientific discovery of modern times, viz. wireless or aetherial telegraphy, which is girdling the earth with its mysterious communications? Is not the key to that discovery to be found in this universal electro-magnetic medium?
Whence come the X-rays, Rontgen rays, and other light rays with their adaptability to human suffering, if they come not from this same electro-magnetic medium? their adaptability to human suffering being dependent upon the intimate and close relationship that exists between the physical body and the electro-magnetic medium.
Where is the key to the principle underlying the gramophone, the phonograph and the telephone, if it be not in this self-same atomic and easily impressible medium?