The History of Things 65 



formation of elements. Sir William Crookes, for 

 instance, has offered suggestions as to the possible 

 origin of the chemical elements from a formless 

 primordial stuff or "protyle," wherein all matter 

 was in the pre-atomic state — potential rather than 

 actual. He has gone the length of suggesting that 

 the chemical elements owe their stability to their 

 being the outcome of a struggle for existence in 

 which the most stable survived. 



Let us take a paragraph from Prof. R. K. Dun- 

 can's marvellously clear exposition of **The New 

 Knowledge."^ "It may be true that all bodily 

 existence is but a manifestation of units of nega- 

 tive electricity lying embosomed in an omnipresent 

 ether of which these units are, probably, a con- 

 ditioned part. Mass comes into existence only as 

 the negative electron, assuming motion, carries 

 with it a bound portion of the ether in which it is 

 bathed; and furthermore this mass depends solely 

 upon the velocity with which the negative unit 

 moves. Our negative unit on receiving mass be- 

 comes a "corpuscle'* endowed with the primary 

 qualities of matter superimposed upon those of 

 electricity. Corpuscles congregating into groups 

 or various configurations constitute essentially the 

 atoms of the chemical elements, locking up in these 

 configurations super-terrific energies and leaving 



^Prof. R. K. Duncan, "The New Knowledge," 1905, 

 p. 252. 



