DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6095#0180
162 A TOUR THROUGH
quantity of matter after it is reduced to
light? Is it ever collected again into solid
bodies ; or is it for ever lost and dissipated,
after it has made its journey from the sun
to the objed it illuminates ?—It is some-
what strange, that of all that immense
quantity of matter poured down on us
during the day, that pervades and fills the
whole universe; the moment we are de-
prived of the luminous body, the whole of
it, in an instant, seems to be annihilated :
—in short, there are a number of diffi-
culties attending the common received doc-
trine of light; nor do I think there is any
point in natural philosophy the solution of
which is less satisfadory. If we suppose
every ray to be a stream of particles of
matter, darting from the luminous body,
how can we conceive that these streams
may be intersedted and pierced by other
streams of the same matter ten thousand
thousand different ways, without causing
the least confusion either to the one or the
other ?
quantity of matter after it is reduced to
light? Is it ever collected again into solid
bodies ; or is it for ever lost and dissipated,
after it has made its journey from the sun
to the objed it illuminates ?—It is some-
what strange, that of all that immense
quantity of matter poured down on us
during the day, that pervades and fills the
whole universe; the moment we are de-
prived of the luminous body, the whole of
it, in an instant, seems to be annihilated :
—in short, there are a number of diffi-
culties attending the common received doc-
trine of light; nor do I think there is any
point in natural philosophy the solution of
which is less satisfadory. If we suppose
every ray to be a stream of particles of
matter, darting from the luminous body,
how can we conceive that these streams
may be intersedted and pierced by other
streams of the same matter ten thousand
thousand different ways, without causing
the least confusion either to the one or the
other ?