EXPERIMENTS ON THE ETHER An apparent change of wave- length. Receiver alone |.An apparent error in direction. moving pro- ( No change of phase or of in- duces... tensity, except that appro- priate to different virtual velocity of light. I may say, then, that not a single optical phe- nomenon is able to show the existence of an ether stream near the earth. All optics go on precise- ly as if the ether were stagnant with respect to the earth. Well, then, perhaps it is stagnant. The ex- periments I have quoted do not prove that it is so. They are equally consistent with its perfect freedom and with its absolute stagnation, though they are not consistent with any in- termediate position. Certainly, if the ether were stagnant nothing could be simpler than their explanation. The only phenomena then difficult to explain would be those depending on light coming from distant regions through all the layers of more or less dragged ether, The theory of astronomical aberration would be seriously complicated; in its present form it would be upset (p. 47). But itis never wise to control facts by a theory; it is bet- ter to invent some experiment that will give a 63