96 SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY 



at all ; for their whole mass and inertia — really 

 the only material property they retain — can be ex- 

 plained as the result of an electrical charge in 

 motion. Matter in solid form, " en masse^' has 

 weight, shape, colour, temperature, and other 

 material properties. In liquid form, its material 

 properties are fewer. In gaseous form, its mate- 

 rial properties are fewer still ; and finally, these 

 atomic fragments, called " corpuscles " or " elec- 

 trons," have no material properties at all, and 

 seem simply disembodied electrical charges. Thus 

 the prophecy of Faraday, that there must be a 

 fourth form of matter, has been more than fulfilled. 

 The dust of atoms is seemingly not matter at all. 

 They may have been matter ; but, as isolated 

 particles, they seem to have lost material qualities. 

 It is very extraordinary, it is almost incredible, 

 that this should be so ! Yet so it is : there seems 

 no way out of it. 



The most characteristic and essential property 

 of matter is its mass or inertia — its power to resist 

 change of motion — as is seen in turning a grind- 

 stone, for instance ; but the mass and inertia of 

 the electrons seems almost certainly to be nothing 

 but the mass or inertia of the electric charge. 



In his work on Radio-active Transformations, 

 Professor Rutherford, one of the most dis- 

 tinguished investigators of radio-activity, puts the 



