VII 



ATOMIC EVOLUTION 1 



OUR survey of evolution as witnessed in the 

 inanimate world, and operating for infinite periods 

 before and infinite periods after the development 

 of life in any particular part of the Cosmos, such as 

 our earth, must now be turned from the realm 

 of the telescope to one so minute that the micro- 

 scope is not only impotent to reveal its secrets, but 

 can never be able to do so, whatever improve- 

 ments be effected in its mechanism ; for the nature 

 of light precludes the possibility that we shall ever 

 be able to see an atom. 



The discovery of evolution among atoms is al- 

 most a revolutionary one, defiant of the most cher- 

 ished and admired dogmas of the chemist. 



Evolution as a universal doctrine must, of course, 

 be rejected if we are to accept the conventional 

 teaching of the chemist that matter consists of 

 some seventy-five or eighty varieties of unalterable 

 elementary atoms. If these have existed as such 



1 In this chapter is reproduced part of an article, "Radium 

 the Revealer," which appeared in Harper's Magazine, June, 

 1904. 



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