326 Kansas Academy of Science. 



and is the bearer of the hereditary qualities which are to char- 

 acterize the future individual. 



Many physical scientists question the presence of three en- 

 tities in the fertilized egg, and some go so far as to say that 

 there is but one. The reasons given are interesting and should 

 be briefly considered here. 



Chemists and physicists teach that matter consists ultimately 

 of atoms. The smallest sphere visible under the best com- 

 pound microscope is one one-hundred-thousandth of an inch 

 in diameter. It would require four hundred hydrogen atoms 

 placed side by side to reach that distance. The physicists say 

 that the atom is made up of electrons and alpha particles. Six 

 million electrons, side by side, would extend the length of the 

 diameter of the hydrogen atom, and fourteen alpha particles 

 would lie on the diameter of the electron. If an atom of silver 

 were magnified to the size of an ordinary recitation room there 

 would be a tiny sphere in the center of the room one twenty- 

 fifth of an inch in diameter, consisting of one hundred alpha 

 particles and fifty electrons, and fifty other electrons circling 

 about the room. Thus the atom is mostly betweenness. More- 

 over, the physicists declare that the alpha particles are units 

 of positive electricity and the electrons units of negative elec- 

 tricity. But electricity is a form of energy ; and matter, there- 

 fore, is but a manifestation of energy. This would reduce the 

 number of entities in the fertilized qsS to two, energy and life. 

 Are these two one ? 



Starting with the atom again, we learn from the chemist 

 and physicist that atoms unite to make molecules. They prob- 

 ably have a definite arrangement in the molecule, and are held 

 together by a force known as chemism. As the molecule and 

 its atoms are invisible under the most powerful microscope, 

 the definite arrangement of the atoms in the molecule is merely 

 inferred, but there are several good reasons for this inference. 

 The combining powers and the affinities of the atom and the 

 molecule would cause special arrangements of the several dif- 

 ferent kinds of atoms in the molecule, and then several sub- 

 stances like gum arable, and cane sugar, and the cellulose and 

 starch, have exactly the same numbers and kinds of atoms in 

 each of these two sets of molecules. These substances have 

 very different physical properties, hence the chemist infers 

 that this difference is due in part to the arrangement of the 



