Note 7 — Chapter XIV · OF THE LIMITS TO THE EXPLANATION OF LAWS OF NATURE; AND OF HYPOTHESES.

What has most contributed to accredit the hypothesis of a physical medium for the conveyance of light, is the certain fact that light travels, (which cannot be proved of gravitation,) that its communication is not instantaneous, but requires time, and that it is intercepted (which gravitation is not) by intervening objects. These are analogies between its phenomena and those of the mechanical motion of a solid or fluid substance. But we are not entitled to assume that mechanical motion is the only power in nature capable of exhibiting those attributes.