The Ether Has No Corresponding States
Degrees of density have already been excluded, and the homogeneity and continuity of the ether would also exclude the possibility of different states at all comparable with such as belong to matter. As for cohesion, it is doubtful if the term ought to be applied to such a substance. The word itself seems to imply possible separateness, and if the ether be a single indivisible substance, its cohesion must be infinite and is therefore not a matter of degree. The ether has sometimes been considered as an elastic solid, but such solidity is comparable with nothing we call solid in matter, and the word has to be defined in a special sense in order that its use may be tolerated at all. In addition to this, some of the phenomena exhibited by it, such as diffraction and double refraction, are quite incompatible with the theory that the ether is an elastic solid. The reasons why it cannot be considered as a liquid or gas have been considered previously.
The expression states of matter cannot be applied to the ether in any such sense as it is applied to matter, but there is one sense when possibly it may be considered applicable. Let it be granted that an atom is a vortex-ring of ether in the ether, then the state of being in ring rotation would suffice to differentiate that part of the ether from the rest, and give to it a degree of individuality not possessed by the rest; and such an atom might be called a state of ether. In like manner, if other forms of motion, such as transverse waves, circular and elliptical spirals, or others, exist in the ether, then such movements give special character to the part thus active, and it would be proper to speak of such states of the ether, but even thus the word would not be used in the same sense as it is used when one speaks of the states of matter as being solid, liquid, and gaseous.