Ancient and Modern Science. 39 



the forces that we know are modifications of one 

 Force, and are identical in their essential nature ; 

 that heat, and light, and all the various forces 

 around us, electricity, magnetism and the rest, 

 that all these are but vibrations of varying lengths 

 and activities in a subtle medium, and that they 

 may be transmuted the one into the other. They 

 are not fundamentally different, but are one and 

 the same in their root. But if this be so, if there 

 be but one Matter, if there be but one Force, then 

 science is now tending towards unity ; and as 

 that unity is traced or aimed at, science will have 

 to pass out of the grosser realm of dense matter 

 into the realm of forces working in subtle media ; 

 and we find this wondrous change that, whereas in 

 old days the existence of force was argued for 

 inductively, by studying the changes in matter, now 

 science is beginning to posit the existence of force 

 and to question whether matter is anything more 

 than the action of force. Instead of regarding an 

 atom as a solid indivisible particle, the tendency 

 is to regard it as a vortex of energy, a centre of 

 force. One writer even goes so far as to suggest 

 that an atom is a source " through which an invi- 

 sible fluid is pouring into three-dimensional space." 

 Other atoms, "anti-atoms," maybe " sinks" through 

 which ^the fluid pours out. If these unite, may 



