August 28, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



i'5 



highest law in physical science which our faculties permit us 

 to perceive." 



Shall we take a third step and proclaim the permanence of 

 force but the destructibility of matter, — that the atom may 

 have a life, grow old, and die, or pass back into primitive 

 no-thiug-ness, or become the etlier of which we talk so 

 much and know so little ? Shall we assume that radiant 

 force may be changed into matter and fall under the law of 

 gravitation ? 



No single thought has conti'ibuted so much to give form 

 and permanence to chemical science as the atom of Dalton. 

 An atomic theory was indeed held by the Greeks in regard 

 to the constitution of matter, but it related chiefly to the 

 question of the continuity or discontinuity of matter in mass, 

 and considered the question of the limited or unlimited di- 

 visibility of matter. But the chemical atom, witli its appli- 

 cation in explaining the law of definite and of multiple pro- 

 portions by weight in chemical combinations, was the gift 

 of the Quaker schoolmaster of Birmingham. It has fur- 

 nished not merely a basis for nomenclature and notation, but 

 has given form and substance to chemical science. Like a 

 sentinel rock, it lifts its immovable form amid the shifting 

 waves and tides of chemical theories. Shall the chemical 

 atom finally be relegated to the limbo of exploded theories 

 and creeds outgrown ? The question is perhaps nearer our 

 doors than we had suspected. 



The question has been seriously raised by an eminent 

 American chemist whether gold can be manufactured. On 

 the affirmative side of this question he points to the fact that 

 didymium has been split into two metals, and by recombining 

 these two new metals the old didymium was again formed. 

 He also points out the complex nature of yttrium as shown 

 by Crookes by means of the spectroscope, and then proceeds 

 to say: " These facts, and many others that could be given, 

 make it probable that the so-called chemical elements are 

 not really elements, but compounds, which in time we shall 

 he able to separate into their constituents, and conversely to 

 reproduce by combining other substances. Among the heavy 

 elements — and hence those that would be expected to yield 

 to the searching attacks of the chemist — is gold. It is 

 not improbable that in time it will become possible to make 

 gold in large quantities — an event which would throw it 

 out of use as a standard of value, so far as it derives its own 

 value from its rarity " (North American Review, Sept., 1890, 

 p. 377). 



At first sight this might appear to be a chemical canard, but 

 the writer proceeds to point out the social and financial re- 

 sults of cheapening of gold. 



The statement that didymium is a compound metal is of 

 great interest to the chemist. But the fact that the reunion 

 of these metals will form the old metal or alloy is not so sur- 

 prising, but is what any chemist would expect. But how 

 do such facts show the probability or even possibility of 

 making any given metal out of heterogeneous materials ? If 

 the combination of cerium and samarium would form didym- 

 ium then a plausible case would be made out. But if 

 praseodymium and neodymium are required to make didym- 

 ium, how are we nearer the manufacture of this last metal 

 by such discovery ? We must still have the two new metals 

 to make the old metal. Suppose that gold can be split into 

 two or ten new metals, the reunion of which will form gold, 

 does this bring us one whit nearer the new age of gold ? If 

 it takes gold to make gold, what part or lot have baser metals 

 in such transformations ? 



The trend of recent discoveries is to increase the number 



of simple or elementary substances. The simple nature of 

 any substance has only been held provisionally, regarded as 

 elementary until its compound nature is shown by exhibiting 

 the separate elements of which it is composed. The more rec- 

 ondite the appliances for investigation, the more complete 

 the differentiation of matter, the greater will be the number 

 of elementary substances, and yet we will be as far as ever 

 from the ability to change one metal to another. 



The question of the primary and essential nature of matter 

 belongs to metaphysics I'ather than physics. Yet the nature 

 of matter as well as its properties is a vital question in chem- 

 istry. The chemist has made certain basic propositions the 

 foundation of his science. The essential immutability of 

 matter is a corner-stone. Weight and measure have no place 

 in a science that deals with matter essentially variable in its 

 nature, but it is weight and measure that have made chemis- 

 try the most exact of all natural sciences. 



The idea of an original simple matter as the basis from 

 which all things have been formed is not wholly modern. 

 Duns Scotus advanced the idea that the basis of universal 

 existence was a materia primo-prima, by the differentia- 

 tion of which the individual is formed. About twenty-five 

 years ago a modified form of this theory was brought for- 

 ward by Professor Hinrichs of Iowa, who advanced his 

 theory of "pantogen" or "urstofE " to explain the constitution 

 of matter. There was only one simple or elementary mat- 

 ter, urstoff; and as all forms of matter are produced from 

 this primary matter, he called it " pautogen," and the prod- 

 ucts formed by the reduplication of this simple matter he 

 called "panatoms."' His argument was based upon a par- 

 allelism between astronomy and chemistry: "The basis of 

 this celestial mechanics (astronomy) is only a hypothesis, 

 that of universal gravitation, which essentially consists iu 

 the affirmation that the heavenly bodiesonly differ in regard 

 to the amount or quantity of matter. Let us have the bold- 

 ness to pronounce a similar hypothesis in regard to chemical 

 atoms. Let us suppose that the atoms of the different ele- 

 ments only differ in regard to quantity, that is, in regard to 

 the number and relative position of the atoms of some one 

 primary matter, just as the planets only differ according to 

 the number of kilograms of ponderable matter they contain 

 and its distribution around their axes. Since everything 

 would be composed of this one primary matter we call it 

 pantogen, and its atoms panatoms," 



This programme of atomechanics was caustically reviewed 

 in the Chemical Neivs, December, 1867, which pointed out 

 the fact that Professor Hinrichs, like all discoverers of his 

 class, continually falls back on analogy. "This too free use 

 of analogy has been the bane of science from the time of 

 Plato, and it would appear that the race of speculators who 

 mistake fanciful analogies for fundamental scientific laws is 

 by no means yet extinct." 



The reviewer closes by urging Professor Hinrichs, as the 

 crowning feat of his discovery, and that which would com- 

 pel the adhesion of scientific men to the new theory, "to 

 isolate pantogen." Has the whirligig of time brought the 

 keen editor and sharp reviewer around to face urstoff and 

 panatoms ? 



How was the atom formed ? Was it coeval with matter, 

 or did matter antedate tlie atom ? Was there prima materia 

 — pantogen, protyle, urstoff — out of which the atom was 

 formed by reduplication of urstoff upon itself ? Do heredity, 

 selection, environment, and discriminative destruction ex- 

 plain atomic formation, and the discrimination of atom from 

 atom in the domain of chemistry ? "A theory of evolution 



