or complement of the world of sensible matter, so that whatever
energy is dissipated in the one is by the same act accumulated in
the other. It is like the negative plate in photography, where
light answers to shadow and shadow to light. Or, still better, it
is like the case of an equation in which whatever quantity you
take from one side is added to the other with a contrary sign,
while the relation of equality remains undisturbed. Thus, it will
be noticed, from the ingenious and subtle, but quite defensible
suggestion of Mr. Babbage, a leap is made to an assumption which
cannot be defended scientifically, but only teleologically. It is
one thing to say that every movement in the visible world
transmits a record of itself to the surrounding ether, in such a
way that from the undulation of the ether a sufficiently powerful
intelligence might infer the character of the generating movement
in the visible world. It is quite another thing to say that the
ether is organized in such a complex and delicate way as to be
like a negative image or counterpart of the world of sensible
matter. The latter view is no doubt ingenious, but it is
gratuitous. It is sustained not by scientific analogy, but by the
desire to find some assignable use for the energy which is
constantly escaping from visible matter into invisible ether. The
moment we ask how do we know that this energy is not really
wasted, or that it is not put to some use wholly undiscoverable
by human intelligence, this assumption of an organized ether is
at once seen to be groundless. It belongs not to the region of
science, but to that of pure mythology.

[6] Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, p. 115; Jevons,
Principles of Science, Vol. II. p. 455.