-9^ THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE. . 



little, if any, nearer the solution of the origin of matter than 

 we were a thousand years ago, and it is fairly safe to hazard the 

 reflection that we are never likely to he much nearer. Thus 

 we have evidently reached the limits of Science in this direction, 

 and can now proceed to the next problem. 



II. What is the Ultimate Composition of Matter? — Vast 

 discoveries have been made since the comparatively recent time 

 when the elements of which everything is composed were put 

 down as " earth, air, fire and water." Now-a-days some 80 to 

 90 substances have been discovered in the world, which, though 

 some of them, like Radium, may break up spontaneously, refuse 

 to yield anything different to themselves, whatever chemical or 

 mechanical process we may subject them to. They have until 

 recently been considered as composed of one material only, and 

 have been called " The Elements." 



The Spectroscope has shown us that the same elements which 

 occur on earth, or a great many of them, abound in our Sun; 

 but scarcely any new element has been discovered outside our 

 globe that we do not possess. The gases Asterium and Nebu- 

 lum, recently found to exist in nebulae and hot stars, and also 

 Coronium, which occurs in the sun's corona, have not been 

 discovered on this earth. We seem to be reaching the limits of 

 Science as we pass from the eighty odd elements, to specu- 

 lations as to whether Hydrogen is not actually the one 

 original element. We find in favour of this theory the fact that 

 the atomic weight of nearly all other elements is exactly divisible 

 by that of Hydrogen. It has been thought that the element 

 Helium, which at one time was not known to exist elsewhere 

 than in the sun, may be the original element. It would certainly 

 seem very improbable that the ultimate matter, of which the 

 whole universe is composed, should be some eighty odd kinds of 

 substances, varying from each other in all manner of ways, as to 

 their quantities, weight, and nearly all other properties. It does 

 not seem likely that Helium is the element out of which all 

 others are composed, except that the atoms of the remarkable 

 element Radium actually break up and give off atoms of this 

 Helium gas, a fact which shows clearly that Helium forms a 

 component part of at least one element; and possibly with the 

 further advance of knowledge, we may yet return to the ancient 

 idea of the Philosopher's Stone, and find that all the elements 

 are composed of one, and that we can produce gold, or any 

 other, out of whichever we choose. 



Although we have now discussed, in a superficial way, the 

 question of an original element, we should make a great mis- 

 take, even if we had succeeded in finding one, if we thought 

 we had approximately solved the problem of the ultimate com- 

 position of matter. The microscope will show us much that 

 would never have been discovered by the unaided eye, but we 

 must give science credit for having penetrated vastly further 

 into the realms of minuteness, than has been, or is ever likely 



