SCIENCE AS A SYMBOL AND A LAW 27 



or hydrogen, can be accounted for by ascribing them 

 to various aggregations of the protions. As for the 

 protions themselves, they are in whole or part nuclei 

 of intrinsic strain in the ether, places where the con- 

 tinuity of this medium has been broken and cemented 

 together again. 



Such a theory is evidently, and in the highest degree, 

 artificial and metaphysical, and Sir Joseph Larmor 

 would be the last to assert that he has given a true 

 picture of the constitution of matter. Its value must 

 rest on the belief that it is the simplest theory avail- 

 able for explaining experimental facts. But the diffi- 

 culties inherent to the theory are insuperable. It is 

 almost inconceivable that our simplest idea of the ulti- 

 mate constituent of the chemical element should be an 

 / 



atom, so bewilderingly complex in character. Each 

 atom of an apparently quiescent body is itself an 

 aggregation of particles, vastly more intricate than the 

 stellar systems, and whirling around each other with a 

 motion approximating a hundred thousand miles per 

 second. And although the atom itself still possesses 

 the attributes of matter, its constituents become merely 

 nuclei of strain in the ether. What must be the 

 structure of an ether which can maintain such a com- 

 plex of strains as all the countless atoms in the uni- 

 verse would require? If we can never be sure matter 

 is actually so constituted, it is unfortunate to create 

 a world so counter to our instinctive belief that in a 



