It must be frictionless, for otherwise the planets would be retarded in
their motions through space. The earth, for instance, is moving along
its orbit at the rate of eighteen miles a second; and yet the ether does
not pile up in front of it, nor is it made rarer in the wake of the
earth. Moreover, during the thousands of years during which astronomers
have been making observations absolutely no retardation has been
detected in the motions of the earth or of any of the heavenly bodies,
even to the smallest fraction of a second.
It is necessary to make the ether absolutely elastic and absolutely
rigid. We are acquainted with many materials that are elastic, and with
some that are comparatively rigid. But the elastic substances that we
are acquainted with are not rigid, and the rigid substances are not
elastic; and to assume such contradictory qualities in the ether
transports us far beyond the bounds of experimental science.
These are but a few of the difficulties raised by the assumption of the
ether as a real entity; but as there is no means of demonstrating its
existence, except by arguing the _necessity_ of having such a medium to
transmit radiant energy, it follows that no multiplication of objections
to the theory is likely to refute it in the minds of those who feel this
necessity.
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