That we cannot speak about an absolute rest of the aether, is self-evident; this expression would not even make sense. When I say for the sake of brevity, that the aether would be at rest, then this only means that one part of this medium does not move against the other one and that all perceptible motions are relative motions of the celestial bodies in relation to the aether.
§ 2. Since Maxwell's views became more and more accepted, the question of the properties of the aether became highly important also for the theory of elasticity. Strictly speaking, not a single experiment in which a charged body or a current conductor moves, can be handled carefully, if the state of motion of the aether is not considered at the same time. In any phenomenon of electricity, the question arises whether an influence of the earth's motion is to be expected; and regarding the consequences of the latter for optical phenomena, we have to demand from the electro-magnetic theory of light that it can account for the already established facts. Namely, the aberration theory isn't one of those parts of optics, for which treatment the general principles of wave theory are sufficient. Once a telescope comes into play, one can not help but to apply Fresnel's dragging coefficient to the lenses, yet its value can only be derived from special assumptions about the nature of light vibrations.
The fact that the electro-magnetic theory of light really leads to that coefficient assumed by Fresnel, was shown by me two years ago[1]. Since then I have greatly simplified the theory and extended it also to the processes involved in reflection and refraction, as well as birefringent bodies[2]. It may be permitted for me, to come back to this matter.
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