INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 17 



study of atomic weights and atomic properties and of the natural 

 classification of Mendeleeff. But one thing is clear : if atoms had 

 parts, they were still uncutable by any known method similar to 

 those by which chemists effect disruption of molecules : if sub-atoms 

 ■ever came to be discovered, it would be by processes as yet un- 

 known. And then the new science of radio-activity arose and 

 taught us that these processes are actually at work in nature 

 always, but that the energy which does the work is locked up within 

 the atom and is beyond the reach of those external influences which 

 we are wont to control. The transmutation of elernents is proved 

 at last, but man has not learned to cause it ; he has only learned 

 that it has been going on in nature since the beginning. Perhaps, by 

 utilising the intense energy of the natural radio-active transformations 

 of radium or its emanation, we may succeed in influencing the life 

 history of other, more sluggish, atoms, and thus hasten transmuta- 

 tions which would otherwise be so slow as to escape our observa- 

 tion altogether. Ramsay has done some work in this direction and 

 has got some curious and interesting results, but it is too early to 

 speak with certainty of their meaning. One extension of Rutherford 

 and Soddy's theory, however, seems unavoidable. The power of 

 spontaneous disruption, involving the creation of new atoms out of 

 •old, can hardly be the exclusive property of uranium, radium, 

 thorium, and a few other elements of large atomic weight ; it must 

 rather be an inherent property of atoms generally. Such trans- 

 formations may be either extremely slow or actually rayless, so as 

 to escape our present methods of detection. Yet it may be that 

 some day we shall be able to prove them — perhaps by Ramsay's 

 method of acceleration, perhaps by some other means that has still 

 to be discovered. Meanwhile there is much to do in the way of 

 further investigation of those radio-active changes that have been 

 observed already, and especially with a view to the complete 

 knowledge of the successive products and their relations as elements 

 to the elder ones of Mendeleeft's periodic scheme. 



It was inevitable that all these new phenomena should give 

 rise to speculative discussions concerning the true inner constitution 

 of the elementary atoms, the nature of the positive charge, the 

 relations between these and the negative electrons, and the actual 

 meaning to be attached to the bonds or valencies which cause 

 atoms to hold together in the molecule. These questions are, of 

 course, very far from final settlement. 1 cannot enter into them 

 here, and merely mention them to show how far we have been 

 carried within the last few years by the Advancement of Science. 



