WHAT IS MATTER? 39 



And having gone thus far, we can not escape going farther. For 

 two or more atoms, properly related, form molecules; these groups of 

 forces, aggregated in large numbers, form, on the one hand, masses of 

 inorganic matter, and, on the other, living cells; and the last, in turn, 

 organize themselves into living, and ultimately into conscious and ra- 

 tional, beings, who, in the last resort, are vastly complicated activities, 

 aware of, and, in a measure, controlling their own intricate behavior. 



To an active imagination the dynamic theory opens up fields fas- 

 cinating to contemplate. Look first at the practical side. Aside from 

 energy of gross position and molar motion, we are accustomed to think 

 of heat and other forms of chemical energy as the only ones available 

 for human use. But Wetham tells us that: 



As a mean value, we may say that, in mechanical units, the energy avail- 

 able for radiation in one ounce of radium is sufficient to raise a weight of 

 something like ten thousand tons one mile high. 



And later that : 



The energy liberated by a given amount of radioactive change ... is at 

 least 500,000 times and may be 10,000,000, greater than that involved in the 

 most energetic chemical action known. 



*& v 



Admitting that our coal measures and iron mines may in time give 

 out, it is evident that the present generation need not feel greatly 

 alarmed. For who will deny to ingenious man the ability to harness 

 these literally stupendous new forces as he has their weaker prede- 

 cessors ? 



And on the theoretical side the gain is no less great. A respectable 

 hypothesis, which experimental, and even laboratory methods can test, 

 correct and enlarge, as growing experience demands, can, even in its 

 initial form, give unity to our thinking. It not only reduces the inde- 

 pendent chemical elements to brotherhood in the one mother substance, 

 but it renders matter, as essentially activity, homogeneous with active 

 mind, thus freeing us from the hopelessness of dualism, and giving a 

 monistic view of the whole of things. And nowhere is utter death to 

 be found. The universe, active through and through, comes out 

 from under the heavy hand of rigid mechanism. Spontaneity 

 is at its heart, and in the marrow of its bones. But lawless and 

 chaotic it is not. There is regularity in the operation of its minutest 

 parts, and organization, harmonious coworking is the law of its being, 

 from the cooperative union of electrons into atoms* to the organization 

 of men into societies, and possibly farther still. But the order and 

 harmony are not imposed from without by an alien power; as the laws 

 of children's play, they are the natural rules of behavior of spontaneous 

 beings, following, unhampered by others besides themselves, the prompt- 

 ings of their interacting natures. 



