EVIDENCE PROVING THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE 71 



handpick away from the mass all the known from the 

 unknown. 



And more than this, suppose there is elementary 

 matter of such a character as will only combine with 

 molecules of a very high complexity, that is to say, atoms 

 which form highly complex molecules, such an order 

 as X, an atomic element having the power of combining 

 with the residuum letters of the alphabet, each letter 

 representing the name of an element, how would it be 

 possible for a chemist to detect the existence of such an 

 atom ? Such powers are beyond the chemist, but 

 Nature makes such combinations, and these we see in 

 what is called organic matter the basis of Life. Atoms 

 which are sparingly distributed cannot be collected in 

 mass by the chemist in quantity. Now suppose in the 

 natural order of things, that matter consists of (to 

 our minds) an infinite number of species of atoms, and 

 that the greater part or number of species are sparingly 

 distributed in matter, let us say, for example, one per 

 cent. 1 of the molecules of which the air consists. Well, 

 all the chemist or physicist has to do is to combine 

 very carefully the oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid 

 and other knoivn molecular materials of which the air 

 consists, and having combined these and abstracted 

 them from the air, and having carefully filtered, either 

 before or after the process, all germs and foreign matter 

 floating in the air then he will have in his possession 

 the residuum ; a mass, say, of thousands or millions of 

 species of atoms, each of which has its specific combining 



1 From the nature of Lord Rayleigh's experiment producing 

 Argon, it is probable that the percentage of Argon to Air is much 

 greater than one per cent. 



