52 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



aspects of Nature's high-speed energies. From this point 

 of view matter is but a form of energy, concentrated by its 

 exceeding velocity, and structured to appear massive or 

 substantial. The very nature of the physical universe is 

 activity or Action. The Law of the Quantum rules all. 



The repercussion of all this on the old concept of matter 

 is deadly. Once the new point of view is thoroughly realised 

 and assimilated into popular thought, the bugbear of matter 

 will cease to trouble our peace. We shall no longer continue 

 to stare at a hopeless irreconcilable contradiction in expe- 

 rience. With the dissolution of the old traditional concept 

 of matter the dead-weight of its utter passivity will dis- 

 appear from men's minds, and one of the greatest partition 

 walls in knowledge will fall down. The contacts with life 

 may still be very difficult to establish. But at any rate the 

 impassable gulf will have disappeared. With the contours 

 of matter razed, its field will itself point the way for the 

 transition to the kingdom of life beyond. For the fields of 

 matter and life will overlap, intermingle, and interpenetrate 

 each other, the fruitful contacts will be established, and the 

 enriched and broadened concepts of matter and life will 

 appear as what they are — different phases in the evolution 

 of an essential unity. The breakdown of the old concept of 

 matter will have prepared the way for a great advance 

 towards a new synthetic world-conception. 



In the second place, another advance of the New Physics 

 has perhaps even greater significance in effecting a rap- 

 prochement between matter and life. I refer to the effect of 

 Radioactivity in destroying the permanence of the natural 

 elements, and in explaining the genesis of the elements from 

 one another. Radioactivity has done a somewhat similar 

 work for matter as Darwin's theory of Organic Descent did 

 for life two generations ago. The fixity of the types of mat- 

 ter has followed the fixity of the types of life to the limbo of 

 the obsolete. Of course there are marked differences in the 

 operation of Radioactivity and Organic Descent. In one 

 respect Radioactivity has not proved as powerful a factor 

 as Organic Descent, for it holds out no promise of the crea- 



