This, hypothesis, which is not justifiable by any electrodynamical
facts, supplies us then with that particular law of motion which has
been confirmed with great precision in recent years.

The theory of relativity leads to the same law of motion, without
requiring any special hypothesis whatsoever as to the structure and
the behaviour of the electron. We arrived at a similar conclusion in
Section 13 in connection with the experiment of Fizeau, the result
of which is foretold by the theory of relativity without the necessity
of drawing on hypotheses as to the physical nature of the liquid.

The second class of facts to which we have alluded has reference to
the question whether or not the motion of the earth in space can be
made perceptible in terrestrial experiments. We have already remarked
in Section 5 that all attempts of this nature led to a negative
result. Before the theory of relativity was put forward, it was
difficult to become reconciled to this negative result, for reasons
now to be discussed. The inherited prejudices about time and space did
not allow any doubt to arise as to the prime importance of the
Galileian transformation for changing over from one body of reference
to another. Now assuming that the Maxwell-Lorentz equations hold for a
reference-body K, we then find that they do not hold for a
reference-body K1 moving uniformly with respect to K, if we assume
that the relations of the Galileian transformstion exist between the
co-ordinates of K and K1. It thus appears that, of all Galileian
co-ordinate systems, one (K) corresponding to a particular state of
motion is physically unique. This result was interpreted physically by
regarding K as at rest with respect to a hypothetical æther of space.
On the other hand, all coordinate systems K1 moving relatively to K
were to be regarded as in motion with respect to the æther. To this