Indeed one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character ever toward the continuous as against the discrete. Not to mention a vast patience with all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require."
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Damn. This whole "continuous versus discrete" thing is probably really important to the bigger picture! This sounds like he's talking about something more than just dissecting light and electromagnetic waves and an imaginary substance filling up our nostrils and buttholes. Since Vanderjuice's monologue (which ends with these two lines) is about the faith often needed to believe in Æther, I should just view this as an analogy of religion. Even though Ætherist looks like Atheist, the Ætherist would be the stand-in for a true believer. Their view is toward the infinite and the continuous, the undying soul that continues on in both directions from the finite body it only momentarily possesses. While the Atheist exists in our discrete and finite mortality, the only life we have to live. The Atheist's view is also the more scientific view, being that perception of evidence is only possible with our consciousness which only exists while we're alive.
"a vast patience with all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require"
While this can describe a scientific theory, it's a poor theory which scientists would probably only use because it was somehow working for some instance but knowing something better and which made more sense without needing a ton of exceptions would come along. So, really, the tiny whirlpools would be religious dogma needed to explain The Bible better, or to handwave away obvious contradictions.
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