THE EVOLUTION OF MATTER 1 



THE ultimate constitution of matter is a subject 

 which has always exercised a powerful attraction 

 upon the minds of men. Philosophical speculations 

 of the essential unity of all matter and of the 

 possibility of transforming the different kinds into 

 one another have come down to us from the 

 ancients. The modern science of Chemistry had 

 its origin in the actual attempts at such transforma- 

 tion or transmutation made by the alchemists in the 

 Middle Ages. These attempts centred around the 

 transmutation of lead or other base metal into gold, 

 and the alchemists believed that there existed, and 

 spent their lives trying to discover, a ''philosopher's 

 stone" to which was ascribed the power to effect 

 this transmutation in almost unlimited amount. 

 The philosopher's stone was also credited with 

 acting as a universal medicine, prolonging life and 

 health indefinitely, or at least to periods rivalling 

 those enjoyed by the Hebrew patriarchs of old. 

 Whether these ideas were wholly the inventions of 

 charlatans, or whether they were the distorted 

 parrot-like repetition of the wisdom of a lost Atlantis, 

 none can now say. But it may be remarked that 

 sober modern science of to-day sees in the power 

 to effect transmutation of the elements the power 

 to prolong the physical welfare of the community 

 for indefinite periods. Indeed, without some such 

 discovery the phase of civilisation, ushered in by 



1 Contributed to the Aberdeen University Review^ February 1917. 



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