l proposition.

[Footnote 40: _Modern Views of Electricity_, p. 221.]

CHAPTER XII

AETHER AND COMETS

ART. 111. _Comets. What are Comets?_--In addition to the planets and
asteroids which revolve around the sun, there are also other bodies
termed Comets, which revolve round the solar orb.

Unlike the planets, however, they do not all keep to the plane of the
ecliptic, but approach to, and recede from the sun at all angles to that
plane, as well as in that plane itself. Comets are supposed to be huge
masses of gaseous matter, in a more or less condensed condition. That
they are not composed of absolutely solid matter is proved by the fact
that it is possible to see the stars through the gaseous matter of which
they are composed.

How the gaseous matter of which these comets are formed is originated,
or how it is formed in solar or stellar space, has, I believe, up to the
present never been explained, and indeed, with the idea of a
frictionless Aether, I fail to see how any physical explanation of the
origin and development of a comet can be satisfactorily given. With the
conception of the Aether, however, that is put forward in this work,
viz. that Aether is matter in its most rarefied and attenuated form,
which can be condensed into a gaseous condition, with such a conception
of the universal aetherial medium, the origin and development of gaseous
matter from this Aether becomes a physical possibility.

Lord Kelvin, in the _Philosophical Magazine_, July 1902, on the
"Clustering of Gravitational Matter in any part of the Universe," has
already suggested the possibility of the condensation of the Aether, but
with the old idea of a frictionless Aether, that is, an Aether which
does not possess mass, such a hypothesis is improbable. Because, if the
Aether becomes condensed at all, it must be condensed into gaseous and
solid matter, and all experiments and observation teach us that both
these forms of matter possess mass and weight.

Therefore, if the frictionless Aether, which possesses no mass and
weight, is to be condensed into gaseous or solid matter, there must come
a period in the process of condensation when it must pass out of the
condition of possessing no mass and no weight, into the condition of
possessing mass and weight, which assumption is altogether opposed to
those Rules of Philosophy based upon experiment and observation.

Aether can