
THE CONSTITUTION OF MATTER 7 
elementary units. What seems, however, more 
astounding still is the fact, as stated by Sir Oliver 
Lodge, that even with these vast numbers in a 
single atom the corpuscles do not ‘fill all the space, 
and if the distance between them were calculated 
they seemed to be about as far apart, in proportion 
to their size, as the planets in the solar system.” It 
is, in fact, now supposed by many authorities that 
there is “in the case of the atom, nothing but a 
group of positive electrons, forming a body like our 
sun, round which their negative partners revolve at 
distances and in orbits corresponding not imperfectly 
to those of the planets . . . and the difference of 
chemical and physical behaviour displayed, for 
instance, by an atom of hydrogen and another of 
iron is accounted for by supposing the planets of 
one to be either more numerous, or to have different 
orbits from those of others.” 
This last is an all-important statement, but it is 
needless for us here to attempt to follow the actual 
investigations further. What they have led to is 
this: that the corpuscle or electron is the in- 
finitesimally minute primordial substance, the 
compounding of which in vast and gradually increas- 
ing numbers gives rise to the several collections of 
properties met with in the atoms of the different 
so-called elements. In what precise way these 
combinations are brought about we know not; 
though in the next chapter some of the conditions 
will be made known that appear to have favoured 
the process, and which permitted the locking up, 
1 Atheneum, May 27, 1905, p. 551. 
