ELECTRONS AND ATOMS 39 



wave-motions are transmitted by it with the 

 same velocity as that of light. 



Given a highly enough concentrated source 

 of energy, it is readily seen that those forms 

 of matter of lowest atomic weight may be 

 formed out of the ether, energy disappearing 

 as kinetic energy and appearing as potential 

 energy, or potentia of the atom. 



Astronomical physics teaches us that just 

 such elements are to be observed in the 

 hottest suns and in gaseous nebulae, and it 

 may well be that here we see to-day matter 

 being created, and a varying balance estab- 

 lished between energia and potentia, which 

 may, through the long chain of events of 

 increasing chemical complexity, followed later 

 by organic complexity of living organisms, 

 lead to an inhabited world. 



It is to Greek philosophy that science owes 

 the conception of matter being indivisible 

 below certain limits, an idea which, at a 

 certain stage of the development of modern 

 chemistry, led to so many brilliant experi- 

 mental discoveries. It was, however, the 

 English chemist, Dalton, who gave the 

 ancient philosophical speculations a sound 

 foundation of realized fact upon which the 

 enormous superstructure of chemistry, as it 

 is known to-day, has since been built up. 



