148 CONCEPTION OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENT 



All this, of course, does not in the least affect or 

 minimise the practical importance of the conception 

 of the chemical elements as understood before these 

 discoveries. Every chemist knows the conception 

 has had and will continue to have a real significance 

 as representing the limit of the spectroscopic and 

 chemical analysis of matter which remains, although 

 it now is known to convey something very different 

 from the original and natural conception of the 

 chemical elements as the / m ns of the material 

 alphabet. 



