Foundations of the Universe 265 



stitution of matter, and that while the physicists of our own 

 day seem to see a possibility of explaining positive and negative 

 electricity, the nature of them both is unknown. There 

 exists the theory that the particles of positive and negative 

 electricity, which make up the atoms of matter, are points or 

 centres of disturbances of some kind in a universal ether, and that 

 all the various forms of energy are, in some fundamental way, 

 aspects of the same primary entity which constitutes matter itself. 



But the discovery of the property of radio-activity has raised 

 many other interesting questions, besides that which we have just 

 dealt with. In radio-active elements, such as uranium for ex- 

 ample, the element is breaking down; in what we call radio- 

 activity we have a manifestation of the spontaneous change of 

 elements. What is really taking place is a transmutation of one 

 element into another, from a heavier to a lighter. The element 

 uranium spontaneously becomes radium, and radium passes 

 through a number of other stages until it, in turn, becomes lead. 

 Each descending element is of lighter atomic weight than its pre- 

 decessor. The changing process, of course, is a very slow one. 

 It may be that all matter is radio-active, or can be made so. This 

 raises the question whether all the matter in the universe may not 

 undergo disintegration. 



There is, however, another side of the question, which the 

 discovery of radio-activity has brought to light, and which has 

 effected a revolution in our views. We have seen that in radio- 

 active substances the elements are breaking down. Is there a 

 process of building up at work? If the more complicated atoms 

 are breaking down into simpler forms, may there not be a con- 

 verse process a building up from simpler elements to more 

 complicated elements? It is probably the case that both processes 

 are at work. 



There are some eighty-odd chemical elements on the earth 

 to-day: are they all the outcome of an inorganic evolution, ele- 

 ment giving rise to element, going back and back to some prime- 



