THE BIRTH OF OUR WORLD 5 



spectrum, the Hertzian waves — the agents of wireless 

 telegraphy — and the vibrations due to the destruction of 

 radium and of analogous bodies ; so that the substance which 

 fills space is uninterruptedly traversed by waves of all 

 descriptions of which actually we know only a part. These 

 spread out in every direction, and in impinging on one another 

 ought, strictly speaking, to give birth to vortical movements 

 analogous to those of which atoms are the theatre, and thus 

 originate matter. 



But what we so far positively know of this movement is that 

 it did not develop out of nothing. Every movement is the 

 product of some former movement and the result of the trans- 

 formation of that movement. 



We do not know, and probably we never shall know, what 

 was the nature of the initial motion from which came the 

 electrons, with their negative charges of electricity, and the 

 elements charged with positive electricity around which they 

 revolve, thus forming the first elements of matter. Not long ago 

 it was believed that motion, like matter, was eternal ; that it 

 could change its modality ; be transmitted from one body to 

 another according to certain laws ; affect the whole mass of a 

 body, or merely disturb its molecules, producing, in this case, 

 heat ; and the demonstration of an equivalence between the 

 mechanical work done and heat produced, foreshadowed by 

 Carnot and determined by Joule, Mayer, Hirn, and Tyndall, 

 apparently gave a very solid scientific foundation to this idea. 

 Therefore, it would be useless to demand what may have 

 been the origin of force. An ether completely permeated with 

 motion and identical with it would thus originate all the forces 

 which eventually would return to it and be lost in it, after 

 having animated matter. To-day, however, we are not quite 

 so certain of this eternity of motion. 



Let us now return to intelligible things. We can see vaguely 

 that a large number of elements, capable of becoming matter, 

 were able to come together in certain regions of space and there 

 form a kind of tight network *■ across the path of infinitely 

 small particles which the repulsive force of already existent 

 stars projects constantly into space. These particles travel at 

 a tremendous speed, and, according to Svante Arrhenius, are 



1 III, 16. 



