turn enter into the general unity, how should it be reduced to the universal mechanism?
Of that no one had any idea. Yet the possibility of this reduction was doubted by none, there was faith. Finally, in what concerns the molecular properties of material bodies, the reduction seemed still easier, but all the detail remained hazy. In a word, the hopes were vast and animated, but vague. To-day, what do we see? First of all, a prime progress, immense progress. The relations of electricity and light are now known; the three realms, of light, of electricity and of magnetism, previously separated, form now but one; and this annexation seems final.
This conquest, however, has cost us some sacrifices. The optical phenomena subordinate themselves as particular cases under the electrical phenomena; so long as they remained isolated, it was easy to explain them by motions that were supposed to be known in all their details, that was a matter of course; but now an explanation, to be acceptable, must be easily capable of extension to the entire electric domain. Now that is a matter not without difficulties.
The most satisfactory theory we have is that of Lorentz, which, as we shall see in the last chapter, explains electric currents by the motions of little electrified particles; it is unquestionably the one which best explains the known facts, the one which illuminates the greatest number of true relations, the one of which most traces will be found in the final construction. Nevertheless, it still has a serious defect, which I have indicated above; it is contrary to Newton's law of the equality of action and reaction; or rather, this principle, in the eyes of Lorentz, would not be applicable to matter alone; for it to be true, it would be necessary to take account of the action of the ether on matter and of the reaction of matter on the ether.
Now, from what we know at present, it seems probable that things do not happen in this way.
However that may be, thanks to Lorentz, Fizeau's results on the optics of moving bodies, the laws of normal and anomalous dispersion and of absorption find themselves linked to one another and to the other properties of the ether by bonds which beyond any doubt will never more be broken. See the facility with which the new Zeeman effect has found its place already and has even aided in classifying Faraday's magnetic rotation which had defied Maxwell's efforts; this facility abundantly proves that the theory of Lorentz is not an artificial assemblage destined to fall asunder. It will probably have to be modified, but not destroyed.
But Lorentz had no aim beyond that of embracing in one totality all the optics and electrodynamics of moving bodies; he never pretended to give a mechanical explanation of them. Larmor goes further; retaining the theory of Lorentz in essentials, he grafts upon it, so to speak, MacCullagh's ideas on the direction of the motions of the ether.
According to him, the velocity of the ether would have the same direction and the same magnitude as the magnetic force. However ingenious this attempt may be, the defect of the theory of Lorentz remains and is even aggravated. With Lorentz, we do not know what are the motions of the ether; thanks to this ignorance, we may suppose them such that, compensating those of matter, they reestablish the equality of action and reaction. With Larmor, we know the motions of the ether, and we can ascertain that the compensation does not take place.
If Larmor has failed,