8 THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE 
within the atoms, of the vast stores of energy which 
they are now known to contain. 
Radium, thorium and uranium are the three 
chemical elements whose atomic weight is the 
highest: and how great is the difference, in this 
respect, between the several chemical elements may 
be gathered from the fact that the atomic weight of. 
hydrogen being 1, that of uranium is 239. Think 
what this means in the way of atomic complexity 
for uranium, when even the atom of hydrogen is 
supposed to contain no less than 1000 corpuscles. 
How vastly complex must be the atoms of these 
higher terms of the series, such as radium, thorium, 
and uranium! And how vast, too, must be the 
amount of intratomic energy locked up within such 
larger atoms may be dimly understood when we are 
told that Professor Thomson “as the result of his 
calculations, concludes that a grain of hydrogen has 
within it energy sufficient to lift a million tons 
through a_height considerably exceeding one 
hundred yards; and that since the amount of energy 
is proportional to the number of corpuscles com- 
prising the atom of the element, the energy of the 
other elements such as sulphur, iron, or lead must 
enormously exceed this amount.” ! 
From what has been said it may be gathered how 
impossible it must be to form any adequate con- 
ception of the complexity of matter, when we 
consider not only this marvellous constitution of the 
very atoms of the elements, but the fact, as we know, 
that these atoms ever tend to combine with one 
) 
1 Duncan, “The New Knowledge,” 1905, p. 176. 
) § 905, Pp 
