230 MODERN VIEWS UN MATTEK. 



three species of ponderable mattei' we niiuht conceive all the diversity 

 of material substances to owe their constitution." 

 Again, in 1811, he said:" 



It will be useless to speculate upon the consequences of such an advancement in 

 chemistry as that of the decomposition and composition of the metals. * * * It 

 is the duty of a chemist to be bold in pursuit. He must not consider things as 

 impracticable merely because they have not yet been effected. He must not regard 

 them as unreasonable because they do not coincide with popular opinion. He 

 must recollect how contrary knowledge sometimes is to what appears to be experi- 

 ence. * * * To inquire whetlier the metals t)e capable of being decomposed and 

 composed is a grand object of true philosophy. 



Davy tirst used the term ''radiant matter" about 1809, l)ut chiefly 

 in connection with what is now called '"radiation." He also used the 

 term in another sense, and the following passage^ in its clear forecast 

 is prophetic of the modern electron: 



If particles of gases were made to move in free space with an almost infinitely great 

 velocity — i. e., to become radiant matter — they might produce the different species 

 of rays, so distinguished by their peculiar effects. 



In his lectures at the Royal Institution, in 1816, "On the general 

 properties of matter," another prescient chemist, Farada}^ used simi- 

 lar terms when he said: 



If we conceive a change as far beyond vaporization as that is above fluidity, and 

 then take into account also the proi)ortioiial increased extent of alteration as the 

 changes rise, we shall, perhaps, if we can form any conception at all, not fall far 

 short of radiant matter; and as in the la.st conversion many cjualities were lost, so 

 here also many more would disappear. 



Again, in one of his early lectures he strikes a forward note: 



At j)resent we begin to feel impatient and to wish for a new state of chemical ele- 

 ments. To decompose the metals, to re-form them, and to realize the once absurd 

 notion of transnmtation are the problems now given to the chemist for solution. 



But Faraday was always remarkable for the boldness and originality 

 with which he regarded generally accepted theories. In 1844 he said: 



The view that physical chemistry necessarily takes of atoms is now very large and 

 complicated; first many elementary atoms — next compound and complicated atoms. 

 System within system, like the starry heavens, may be right — but may be all wrong. 



A 3 ear later Faraday startled the world by a discovery to which he 

 gave the title "On the magnetization of light and the illumination 

 of the magnetic lines of force." For fifty 3'ears this title was mis- 

 understood and was attributed to enthusiasm or confused ideas. But 

 to-day we begin to see the full significance of the Faraday dream. 



It was not till 1896 that Zeeman showed a spectrum line could ))e 

 acted on 1)ya magnetic field. A spectrum line is caused by motion of 

 the electron acting on the ether, which can only move and be moved 



«Loc. cit.. Vol. VIII, p. 330. 

 &Loc. cit.. Vol. VIII, p. :349. 



