ORIGINAL FORM OF MATTER. 21 



combinations when an unstable compound 

 is forcibly broken up, is sometimes pro- 

 digious, as in the case of gunpowder and 

 dynamite. 



Modern study of electricity and magnet- 

 ism, and of the X- and cathode rays, has 

 confirmed scientists in the belief that the 

 ultimate or original matter of the universe 

 was not the atomic condition of the material 

 bodies with which we are acquainted ; 

 but a single, uniform, non-atomic, very 

 subtle substance, filling all space ; and in 

 which it has been conjectured there 

 occurred in the unfathomable past innumer- 

 able " centres of condensation " or motion 

 in the shape of infinitesimal whirlpools 

 or vortices : and that perhaps in this way 

 were made the atoms of the matter out of 

 which have been formed not only the stars 

 and planets and the solar system, but also 

 the various kinds of matter discoverable 

 in the earth. To the present writer it 

 seems very probable that primitive matter 

 was dual the non-atomic ether, and the 

 atomic substance. 1 1 



1 1 " Lastly, if the atom itself be a vortex-ringj as ex- 

 plained in the chapter on the ether, it follows that in the 

 absence of such form of motion there would be no atom 

 no matter : the substance out of which the ring was con- 



