Since therefore we find by other proofs, that many of those bodies which we
think the most solid ones, and appear so to our sight, have notwithstanding
abundance of those grosser kind of pores, which will admit several kinds of
liquors into them, why should we not believe that Glass, and all other
transparent bodies abound with them, since we have many other arguments,
besides the propagation of light, which seem to argue for it?
And whereas it may be objected, that the propagation of light is no
argument that there are those atomical pores in glass, since there are
_Hypotheses_ plausible enough to solve those _Phaenomena_, by supposing the
pulse onely to be communicated through the transparent body.
To this I answer, that that _Hypothesis_ which the industrious _Mersennus_
has publish'd about the slower motion of the end of a Ray in a denser
_medium_, then in a more rare and thin, seems altogether unsufficient to
solve abundance of _Phaenomena_, of which this is not the least
considerable, that it is impossible from that supposition, that any colours
should be generated from the refraction of the Rays; for since by that
_Hypothesis_ the _undulating pulse_ is always carried perpendicular, or at
right angles with the Ray or Line of direction, it follows, that the stroke
of the pulse of light, after it has been once or twice refracted (through a
Prisme, for example) must affect the eye with the same kind of stroke as if
it had not been refracted at all.
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