from the point of view of the mutual attractions which orientation causes in the constitution of crystalline media, on account of the complex electric and magnetic fields which surround a system of electrons in its immediate vicinity.
Gravitational forces alone remain distinct, superimposed on the electromagnetic forces, and no difficulty comes from this on account of the negative results of the experiments undertaken to show the absolute motion of the earth.
The negative results can be explained, as we shall see, if all the internal forces of matter are of electromagnetic origin; but gravitational force, alone different, can be superimposed on them without introducing an appreciable modification of this result, for its intensity is extraordinarily small compared to electromagnetic actions, even if there is no mutual compensation between them, and in all the experiments in question, interference of light or equilibrium of an elastic system, the gravitational forces play no appreciable role.
It would be, indeed, important to obtain a condition in a case of equilibrium where the forces of gravity would play an important part, and if the equilibrium remains independent of the total motion to nearly the second order, if we could only observe the mutual motion to this order of precision, it would be necessary to conclude that the forces of gravitation also are modified by motion of translation in the same manner as the electromagnetic forces, since the equilibrium between the two kinds of forces is not disturbed, and this would be an important indication of the necessity of an electromagnetic representation of gravitation. We would be able, for example, if the sensibility allowed it, to perform the experiment of Trouton and Noble by suspending the condenser with a bifilar to the pan of a balance instead of by an elastic fibre.
Since this test has not been made, since experiments designed to show the absolute motion have not involved weight, it would be more reasonable to consider gravitation as a force distinct from electromagnetic action, which acts at the interior of the electrons in order to insure their stability, without its being possible actually to imagine in what manner we can seek a more profound knowledge of the ether and of the electrons which it incloses.
It does not seem, in any manner and for many reasons, that this can be of the nature of a material and mechanical representation of the ether.
VI. Cathode Rays
(33) The Ratio e/m. Before examining the consequences involved in the electronic conception of matter, I should like to examine a few points relative to the electrons of two kinds. Those which we know the better, the more intimately, are the negative electrons, which
