NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



puscles. But they seem destined to play a far 

 more important role than the flying streams which 

 Sir Isaac Newton imagined two centuries ago. 



Where the chemical atoms offer an engaging vari- 

 ety, with the corpuscles there is none at all. What- 

 ever be the source from which they spring, whether 

 they come from ordinary air, or from hydrogen or 

 carbonic acid, or from metals, from dull lead or 

 gleaming gold, they seem, one and all, the same. 



Has the physicist reached at last the primal 

 matter, the ultimate basis of all existing things? 

 This, it would appear, is Professor Thomson's own 

 view, for already, as I have indicated, he has begun 

 to utilize his corpuscles to explain the composition 

 of matter, and even the nature of electricity, while 

 yet others, coming to his aid, have seen a variety 

 of ways in which the corpuscles may serve to widen 

 our horizons and solve many a mystery. 



First, what is the conception that we may make 

 of the atom itself? Compared with the corpuscles, 

 the atom must be something gigantic, a huge com- 

 posite made up, perhaps, of the corpuscles them- 

 selves. And all our present-day conceptions run 

 to notions of matter in motion. Nothing is at rest. 

 The atom might be conceived, therefore, as a great 

 swarm or cluster of corpuscles, revolving about a 

 mutual centre much as our planets whirl about the 

 sun. 



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