General Introduction 



same. That all phases of energy are comparable 

 to the mutually convertible orbits which the 

 various parts of a machine may describe in air 

 volutes, spirals, circles, waves. And with respect 

 to matter, as well as motion, there seems to be 

 good ground to think it fundamentally one. The 

 spectroscope displays an increasing simplicity of 

 substance the higher the temperature of a star, 

 so that it would seem that the "elements" of 

 chemistry may be but the variously grouped 

 aggregations of some simplest substance. A 

 strange confirmation of the faith in transmuta- 

 tion entertained by alchemists of old ! Half 

 way in the course of the last century physical 

 science was as it were a succession of islands in 

 an archipelago, each isolated and distinct from its 

 neighbours. Even while we watched they arose, 

 and the retiring waters showed a connected con- 

 tinent, speedily parcelled out among sturdy 

 bands of explorers. That the wave circling out 

 from the paddle, the musical note pulsating the 

 air, the throb of electricity, the grasp of magnet- 

 ism, the impulse of gravitation, the vibrant heat 

 and light shot forth from fuel, sun and star, the 

 stimulus to chemic union, the subtle energy of 

 animal and plant, are in all their diversity 

 fundamentally one, is a conception as great as 

 ever dignified human thought. Truly the faith- 

 ful, patient men, whose gift to mankind it is, are 



Unifiers of a united world, 

 For wheresoever their clear eye-beams fell 

 They caught the footsteps of the same, 

 ix 



