8 REPORT—1904. 
constituents would be scarcely diminished. They would lie side by side, 
without movement, without chemical affinity ; yet each one, howsoever 
inert in its external relations, the theatre of violent motions, and of 
powerful internal forces. 
Or, put the same thought in another form : When the sudden appear- 
ance of some new star in the telescopic field gives notice to the astronomer 
that he, and perhaps, in the whole universe, he alone, is witnessing the 
conflagration of a world, the tremendous forces by which this far-off 
tragedy is being accomplished must surely move his awe. Yet not only 
would the members of each separate atomic system pursue their relative 
course unchanged, while the atoms themselves were thus riven violently 
apart in flaming vapour, but the forces by which such a world is shattered 
are really negligible compared with those by which each atom of it is held 
together. 
In common, therefore, with all other living things we seem to be 
practically concerned chiefly with the feebler forces of Nature, and with 
energy in its least powerful manifestations. Chemical affinity and 
cohesion are on this theory no more than the slight residual effects of the 
internal electrical forces which keep the atom in being. Gravitation, 
though it be the shaping force which concentrates nebule into organised 
systems of suns and satellites, is trifling compared with the attractions 
and repulsions with which we are familiar between electrically charged 
bodies ; while these again sink into ‘insignificance beside the attractions 
and repulsions between the electric monads themselves. The irregular 
molecular movements which constitute heat, on which the very possibility 
of organic life seems absolutely to hang, and in whose transformations 
applied science is at present so largely concerned, cannot rival the 
kinetic energy stored within the molecules themselves. This prodigious 
mechanism seems outside the range of our immediate interests. We live, 
so to speak, merely on its fringe. It has for us no promise of utilitarian 
value. It will not drive our mills ; we cannot harness it to our trains. 
Yet not less on that account does it stir the intellectual imagination. 
The starry heavens have from time immemorial moved the worship or 
the wonder of mankind. But if the dust beneath our feet be indeed 
compounded of innumerable systems, whose elements are ever in the 
most rapid motion, yet retain through uncounted ages their equilibrium 
unshaken, we can hardly deny that the marvels we directly see are not 
more worthy of admiration than those which recent discoveries have 
enabled us dimly to surmise. 
i; 
Now whether the main outlines of the world-picture which I have 
just imperfectly presented to you be destined to survive, or whether in their 
turn they are to be obliterated by some new drawing on the scientific 
palimpsest, all will, T think, admit that so bold an attempt to unify 
