THE JOURNEYING ATOMS 



trons. Sir J. J. Thomson conceives of a free electron 

 as dashing about from one atom to another at a 

 speed so great as to change its location forty million 

 times a second. In the electron we have matter de- 

 materialized; the electron is not a material particle. 

 Hence the step to the electric constitution of matter 

 is an easy one. In the last analysis we have pure 

 disembodied energy. " With many of the feelings of 

 an air-man," says Soddy, " who has left behind for 

 the first time the solid ground beneath him," we 

 make this plunge into the demonstrable verities of 

 the newest physics; matter in the old sense — gross 

 matter — fades away. To the three states in which 

 we have always known it, the solid, the liquid, and 

 the gaseous, we must add a fourth, the ethereal — 

 the state of matter which Sir Oliver Lodge thinks 

 borders on, or is identical with, what we call the 

 spiritual, and which affords the key to all the occult 

 phenomena of life and mind. 



As we have said, no human eye has ever seen, or 

 will see, an atom; only the mind's eye, or the im- 

 agination, sees atoms and molecules, yet the atomic 

 theory of matter rests upon the sure foundation of 

 experimental science. Both the chemist and the 

 physicist are as convinced of the existence of these 

 atoms as they are of the objects we see and touch. 

 The theory " is a necessity to explain the experi- 

 mental facts of chemical composition." "Through 

 metaphysics first," says Soddy, "then through 



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