88 THE EVOLUTION OF MATTER 



but are still true of all processes known before 

 the fateful year 1896, that they may be recalled 

 again : 



" Natural causes, as we know, are at work which 

 tend to modify, if they do not at length destroy, all 

 the arrangements and dimensions of the earth and 

 the whole solar system. But though in the course 

 of ages catastrophes have occurred and may yet 

 occur in the heavens, though ancient systems may be 

 dissolved and new systems evolved out of their 

 ruins, the molecules 1 out of which these systems 

 are built the foundation stones of the material 

 universe remain unbroken and unworn." 



Modern chemistry has at hand incomparably 

 more powerful methods of experiment than were 

 known to the alchemist. But the foundation stones 

 of the material universe still remained unbroken 

 and unworn. 



After having been attacked without success by 

 the alchemist with fanatical fervour and devotion, 

 after having eluded the utmost efforts of the chemist 

 to change them, until at last he had accepted his 

 defeat as the firm basis on which to build his science, 

 the eighty or so elements, that had been discovered 

 and recognised, possessed a reputation for per- 

 manence and unchangeability that was unique in the 

 whole universe of reality. Thus far and no further 

 into the analysis of matter experiment had pene- 

 trated. Beyond there was nothing but speculation 

 and imagination plenty of both, but not of much 

 value in science, apart from experimental knowledge, 

 and least of all, perhaps, in favour with the " sceptical 

 chemist." He knew the elements as a shepherd is 

 supposed to know his flock, their properties, the 



1 Clerk Maxwell was a physicist. If he had been a modern 

 chemist he would have used the word atoms where he uses 

 molecules. 



