xv.] BRODIE'S VIEW. 207 



whose further dissociation in stellar or nebulous masses may even 

 give us evidence of matter still more elemental than that revealed in 

 the experiments of the laboratory, where we can only conjecture the 

 compound nature of many of the so-called elementary substances." 



On the 6th of June, one week after Dr. Sterry Hunt's lecture, 

 Sir Benjamin Brodie gave a lecture on " Ideal Chemistry " 

 before the Chemical Society of London, 1 in which he further 

 extended the suggestion already put forth by him in his 

 memoir of 1866 : 



" We may conceive that in remote ages the temperature of matter 

 was much higher than it is now, and that these other things [the 

 ideal elements] existed in the state of perfect gases separate 

 existences uncombined." 



He further suggested, from spectroscopic evidence, that it is 

 probable that " we may one day, from this source, have revealed 

 to us independent evidence of the existence of these ideal 

 elements in the sun and stars." 



Thus we see that Brodie 2 by a stroke of genius, before any- 

 thing was known about the chemistry of the sun, went to the 

 sun for that transcendental temperature he was in search of ; 

 thus showing that he had an absolutely pure and accurate con- 

 ception of the whole thing as I believe it to be but that is to 

 anticipate matters. He suggested that the constituents of our 

 elementary bodies might be found existing as independent forms 

 in the hottest parts of the solar atmosphere. 



Would it have been wise to have considered, then, the whole 

 question of the dissociation of elementary bodies ? I think it 

 would not have been wise ; data there were, as I have endeavoured 

 to show, but they were insufficient. The true thing to be done 

 was to endeavour to accumulate new facts and then to see what 

 would happen when a sufficiently long base had been obtained. 



1 Chem. News, 1867, June 14. 



2 Ideal Chemistry. Lecture delivered to the Chemical Society in 1867, repub- 

 lished 1880. (Macmillan.) 



