36 Life and Matter [chap. n. 



immutable existence, the c problem ' has re- 

 solved itself into the discovery of what these 

 things actually are. It will not do to jump 

 at some object and assume that that is it. 



A multitude of things obviously perish, 

 thereby showing themselves to be trivial or 

 accidental arrangements, according to our 

 hypothesis. A flame is extinguished and 

 dies, a mountain is ultimately ground into 

 sand by the slow influence of denudation, a 

 planet or a sun may lose its identity by 

 encounter with other bodies. All these 

 are temporary collocations of atoms ; and it 

 appears now that an atom may break up into 

 electric charges, and these again may some 

 day be found capable of resolving themselves 

 into pristine ether. If so, then these also 

 are temporary, and in the material universe 

 it is the ether only which persists the 

 Ether with such states of motion or strain as 

 it eternally possesses in which case the 

 Ether will have proved itself the material 

 substratum and most fundamental known 

 entity on that side. 



