�ｏ★�︼nexions [i.e., those forces and motions seen in experimental situations] between the known electro-magnetic phenomena.18Maxwell chief argument for introducing this feature of the model is, then, that it is echanically conceivable.�In that sense, it was like the whole model: it was not something claimed as xisting in nature,�but it did make sense of things. The climax of Maxwell paper comes in part � There, he used his model of an elastic, mechanical aether (including, crucially, the idle-wheel particles) to determine the amount of elasticity that a medium of that sort should possess if it were the cause of the electromagnetic forces measured by experiment. The result showed him that waves in such a medium would travel through it at a speed very close to the measured speed of light in a vacuum, and hence that light likely was itself an electromagnetic disturbance. Although Maxwell routinely referred to his model in this paper as ypothetical,�one aspect of it that was clearly not meant to be hypothetical was its assumption that electromagnetic forces and wave disturbances took place in a medium of some kind. The fact that Maxwell also viewed this medium as specially mechanical rects his view of the special intelligibility of mechanical (dynamical) concepts. These concepts had the further advantage of correlating nicely with the mechanical phenomena of forces and motions that were the results of experiments on electromagnetism. Maxwell subsequent paper of , Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field,�attempted to dispense with the details of his aether model, although it still took for granted that a material aether existed to sustain and transmit forces: he parts of this medium must be so connected,�he explained, hat the motion of one part depends in some way on the motion of the rest; and at the same time these connexions must be capable of a certain kind of elastic yielding, since the communication of motion is not instantaneous, but occupies time.�9 In developing particular mechanical inferences from these starting points, he described what he came up with as a ynamical illustration�of these fundamental points, using the expression in the
