PART V. 

 THE RESOLUTION OF THE ATOM. 



CHAPTER I. 

 MODERN ALCHEMY: THE TRANSMUTATION OF MATTER. 



Amid the shifting scenes wherein they live, men have 

 always believed in the existence of an underlying reality or 

 unity of which the ordinary changing forms of matter are 

 but a superficial manifestation. 



" There abides in nature a certain form of matter which 

 being, discovered and brought by art to perfection, converts 

 to itself all imperfect bodies that it touches." This is a 

 saying of the ancient alchemy, and it constitutes a prop- 

 osition from the rooted belief in which have sprung many 

 centuries of sweaty, toilsome, futile effort. 



" In chemistry we recognize how changes take place in 

 combinations of the unchanging." This is the statement 

 of chemistry, the daughter of alchemy. 



The two forms of statement are alike in this, that they 

 postulate an underlying essence of simplicity and perfectness. 



With the alchemist this simplicity lay in a certain sub- 

 stance. Commonly, it was called the philosopher's stone 

 and, later, the elixir of life. By means of it, if one could but 

 come at it, it was possible, at a touch to transmute all 

 baser metals into gold and, by drinking it, to gain eternal 

 life on earth. 



(137) 



