The oldest and best known function for an ether is the conveyance of light, and hence the name "luminiferous" was applied to it, though at the presen… - Oliver Lodge

The waves of light are not anything mechanical or material, but are something electrical and magnetic—they are, in fact, electrical disturbances periodic in space and time, and travelling with a known and tremendous speed through the ether of space. Their very existence depends upon the ether, and their speed of propagation is its best known and most certain quantitative property.

The things to be investigated are either true or false. If false, pertinacious inquiry will reveal their falsity. If true, they are profoundly important. For there are no half-truths in Nature; every smallest departure has portentous consequences; our eyes must open slowly, or we should be overwhelmed.

Death is not a word to fear, any more than birth is. We change our state at birth, and come into the world of air and sense and myriad existence; we change our state at death and enter a region of—what?