90 THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 



mental character in spectrum analysis, and shown their 

 presence as distinct elements in the sun and other heavenly 

 bodies where they must have been subjected to the action 

 of the most energetic decomposing forces. So that in the 

 present state of our knowledge the near prospect of suc- 

 cessful transmutation does not seem to be very bright, 

 although we cannot regard it as impossible. In the article 

 from which we have already quoted, Sir William Ramsay, 

 after discussing the bearing of certain experiments in re- 

 gard to the parting with and absorbing of energy by cer- 

 tain elements, says: "If these hypotheses are just, then 

 the transmutation of the elements no longer appears an 

 idle dream. The philosopher's stone will have been dis- 

 covered, and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that 

 it may lead to that other goal of the philosophers of the 

 dark ages the elixir vitce. For the action of living cells 

 is also dependent on the nature and direction of the energy 

 which they contain ; and who can say that it will be im- 

 possible to control their action, when the means of impart- 

 ing and controlling energy shall have been investigated ! " 



In the event of the discovery of a cheap method of pro- 

 ducing gold, the change which would certainly occur in our 

 financial or currency system would be important, if not 

 revolutionary. It has become the fashion at present with 

 certain writers to scout the so-called "quantitative theory" 

 of money as if it were an exposed fallacy. Now the quan- 

 titative theory of money rests on one of the most well- 

 grounded and firmly established principles in political econ- 

 omy : the trouble is that the writers in question do not 

 understand it or even know what it is. At present, the 

 production of gold barely keeps pace with the increasing 

 demand for the metal as currency and in the arts, but if 



