FOREWORD. 



T^HE author desires to explain that the method in 

 which he has attacked the great problem with 

 which this treatise deals was settled for him by 

 the fact that it was the discovery of Radium by 

 Madame Curie, and the philosophic explanations of 

 Professors Rutherford and Soddy with regard to 

 radium phenomena, that enabled him to jump to the 

 apprehension of the speed theory of material com- 

 bination^ which has formed the germ from which this 

 sketch of a true natural philosophy has developed. 



His acknowledgments and thanks are due to the 

 many eminent men, at home or abroad, living or 

 dead, who have helped him by their books, their 

 delicate and difficult experiments, their wonderful 

 calculations and clever practical work. The living 

 are too truly great to be offended by the efforts of 

 another, however humble, to solve, as far as may be, 

 with their assistance, the great unsolvable. Write 

 with diffidence for the great he must; but their 

 greatness only gives him confidence, because he 

 knows that he is taking his pearls to a right market 

 where they can be tested and appreciated, where their 

 beauty will please and their purity entrance. 



In referring to Sir Isaac Newton the author has no 

 desire to belittle his genius. Sir Isaac was a giant; 



7 



