60 From Matter to Man. 



atoms and their combining weights — constitute two 

 great complemental potencies, each necessary to the 

 other's usefulness ; and both resulting in a combined 

 dual table with dual values, practically completing 

 the science of chemistry. Although the discovery of 

 the atomic weights was a red-letter day in chemistry, 

 a law productive of wonderful results since, yet its 

 development was hampered by ignorance of the true 

 reciprocal elements. It was a cypher lacking part of 

 its key ; but with the establishment of the " material 

 alphabet," this reproach can no longer be levelled 

 at it. 



In conclusion, necessary as the preceding laws 

 are to nature, their comprehension by man is of still 

 vaster import to humanity at large. Nature, as the 

 original chemist, has ever been evolving new sub- 

 stances whenever and wherever the necessary con- 

 ditions were available; but the human chemist, as 

 the more intelligent of the two (if we can separate 

 man from his compost, for man is only nature 

 personified), should, in his more efficient laboratories, 

 and by the aid of his superior apparatus, manufacture 

 new substances ad libitum with the prescience of an 

 oracle. 



This finishes our review of matter in its material 

 as distinct from its energial aspect. 



Our material knowledge of matter may thus be 

 assumed complete philosophically, at least for to- 

 day, for it is cyclic ; though probably incomplete 

 scientifically or in details. Commencing with 



