28 Life and Matter [chap. n. 



doubt, and in support of which all scientific 

 experience may be adduced in favour. 



It is possible, however, to grant to Pro- 

 fessor Haeckel not positively, but for 

 the sake of argument, and giving him the 

 benefit of our present ignorance that it is 

 unlikely that matter in its lowest denomina- 

 tion can by us be created or destroyed. 

 For, although it is now pretty well known 

 that atoms of matter are not the inde- 

 structible and immutable things they were 

 once thought (seeing that, although we do 

 not know how to break them up, they are 

 liable every now and then themselves to 

 break up or explode, and so resolve them- 

 selves into simpler forms), yet it can be 

 granted that these simpler forms are likewise 

 themselves atoms, in the same sense, and 

 that if they break up they will break up 

 likewise into atoms : or ultimately, it may 

 be, into those corpuscles or electrons or 

 electric charges, of which one plausible 

 theory conjectures that the atoms of matter 

 are really composed. 



