126 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



spectroscopy conform to those of continuous evolution, yet the words of 

 Maxwell clearly show how small a step the most brilliant imagination, un- 

 aided, is able to take. It would be an interesting digression to examine 

 the small part played by the imagination, unaided by existing models or 

 analogies, in mathematical and physical science. 



The second distinguishing feature is that the evolution proceeds from 

 the complex to the simple. In all previous ideas a continuous building- 

 up of the original protyle into something more and more complex was 

 implied. 



The third difference is that the evolution is actually proceeding under 

 our eyes, instead of having once proceeded in the remote past, or, if pro- 

 ceeding now, then only under transcendental conditions impossible to 

 realise in the laboratory, which was the earlier idea. 



But the fourth distinguishing feature is the vital one. Hitherto the 

 energy changes that must accompany a subatomic change had received no 

 consideration, while in the new views it is the dominating aspect. Much 

 takes on a new significance in this light. We have seen how the range of 

 the older weapons of investigation, the balance and the spectroscope, has 

 been left behind. We can understand why it is that these new changes 

 proceed with such complete independence of their environment. All the 

 forms of energy known previously are so much lower in order of mag- 

 nitude that it is not to be expected that we should be able to influence 

 the rate of change with the means at our disposal. The explanation is 

 now ready to hand why the elements have hitherto resisted and still re- 

 sist all attempts to change them. The resistless energy which accom- 

 panies the break-up of an atom must pre-exist within the atom and be 

 controlling its history, making it independent of its environment and such 

 forces as we can bring to bear upon it from the outside. For the first 

 time we have a positive proof, if such were needed, of the correctness of 

 the stand taken by chemistry against the claim of the alchemist. There 

 may have existed a lingering doubt in some minds, after reading the cir- 

 cumstantial accounts that have been recorded of actual transmutation, 

 that perhaps in some cases the alchemist by chance achieved his ends. 

 Now, however, we know that such could certainly not have been the 

 case, on account of the energy which would have been evolved in the 

 change of a heavy element into a lighter one, or absorbed in the reverse 

 process. On the other hand, we can imagine what consequences the suc- 

 cessful ti-ansmutation of metals would bring in its train, which are not at 

 all those which its devotees have imagined. In this problem our posi- 

 tion might be compared to that of the savage who knew of fire and its 

 possibilities, and yet neither possessed it nor could start or control it. 

 The control and utilisation of fire and other soui'ces of energy means 

 no more to the present than the conti'ol and utilisation of the internal 

 energy of matter will mean to the future, if ever it comes to be accom- 

 plished. 



It is in this aspect also that the most revolutionary changes in previous 

 ideas are rendered necessary. The energy changes accompanying any 

 form of continuous material evolution must be the controlling factor of 

 any cosmical scheme, and the failure to recognise this so deeply affects all 

 the existing views on cosmical and terrestrial evolution that it is diflicult 

 to see what will remain when it is rectified. But a beginning has been 

 made, and the discussion that has been arranged in this Section on 

 the connection between radium and the internal heat of the earth must 



