Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Hi. (1908), No. 10- 43 



formulae has a significance which passes beyond merely 

 analogical representation, and that our dynamical views 

 must so far as possible be adapted to it. We have 

 recognised that the interaction of atoms at a distance 

 apart, which is necessary to a cosmos, is provided for by 

 a very special mechanism, consisting in the activity 

 through the aether of the electrons that are attached to 

 them. The artificial aspect of this arrangement would 

 be relieved if we could assume these entities to be of the 

 essence of atomic structure ; we are justified in following 

 out this hypothesis as far as it can carry us ; and the 

 totally unexpected phenomena of disintegration of com- 

 plex atoms, very definitely detected, even in part predicted, 

 by Rutherford and his colleagues and successors (Soddy, 

 Ramsay, etc.), itself arising from Becquerel's and the 

 Curies' discovery of spontaneous radio-activity, may 

 ultimately lead us far. But there remains the question 

 whether the facts of biology demand an underlying com- 

 plexity in the atoms vaster than could be embraced in 

 any definite physical scheme. 



Our conviction of an orderly connexion between 

 things constitutes the conception of a cosmos. We have 

 placed the foundation of this in the existence of a uniform 

 medium, the aether, the physical groundwork of inter- 

 stellar space, through which the actions between material 

 bodies are established and transmitted. The idea of such 

 a medium, when analysed mathematically, almost demands 

 that matter should consist of discrete atoms, involving 

 nuclei each of which binds together into permanence 

 some mode of local disturbance in the medium. The 

 illimitable complexity of the phenomena resides in 

 matter ; but our grasp of the physical relations to which 

 all its manifestations are subject arises from their being 

 such as can be established through the aether. The 



