Albert A. Michelson on Luminiferous aether

“It appears, from all that precedes, reasonably certain that if there be any relative motion between the earth and the luminiferous ether, it must be small; quite small enough entirely to refute Fresnel's explanation of aberration.”

“Suppose that an ether strain corresponds to an electric charge, an ether displacement to the electric current, these ether vortices to the atoms—if we continue these suppositions, we arrive at what may be one of the grandest generalizations of modern science—of which we are tempted to say that it ought to be true even if it is not—namely, that all the phenomena of the physical universe are only different manifestations of the various modes of motions of one all pervading substance—the ether.”