June 26, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



995 



we begin to see the full significance of the 

 Faraday dream. 



In 1879, in a lecture I delivered before 

 the British Association* at Sheffield, it fell 

 to my lot to revive 'Radiant Matter.' I 

 advanced the theory that in the phenomena 

 of the vacuum tube at high exhaustions 

 the particles constituting the cathode 

 stream are not solid, nor liquid, nor gase- 

 ous, do not consist of atoms propelled 

 through the tube and causing luminous, 

 mechanic or electric phenomena where 

 they strike, 'but that they consist of some- 

 thing much smaller than the atom— frag- 

 ments of matter, ultra-atomic corpuscles, 

 minute things, very much smaller, very 

 much lighter than atoms — things which 

 appear to be the foundation stones of 

 which atoms are composed.'! 



I further demonstrated that the physical 

 properties of radiant matter are common 

 to all matter at this low density— 'Whether 

 the gas originally under experiment be 

 hydrogen, carbon dioxide or atmospheric 

 air, the phenomena of phosphorescence, 

 shadows, magnetic deflection, etc., are 

 identical.' Here are my words, written 

 nearly a quarter of a century ago: "We 

 have actually touched the borderland 

 where matter and force seem to merge 

 into one anotherj- the shadowy realm be- 

 tween the known and unknown. I ven- 

 ture to think that the greatest scientific 

 problems of the future will find their so- 

 lution in this borderland, and even beyond ; 

 here, it seems to me, lie ultimate realities, 

 subtle, far-reaching, wonderful." 



It was not till 1881 that J. J. Thomson 

 established the basis of the electrodynamic 



* ' British Association Reports,' Sheffield Meet- 

 ing, 1879. Chemical Weivs, Vol. XL., p. 91. Phil. 

 Trans. Roy. Soc, 1879, Part I., p. 585. Proc. 

 Roy. Soc, 1880, No. 205, p. 469. 



tSir 0. Lodge, Nature, Vol. LXVIL, p. 451. 



$' Matter is but a mode of motion' {Proo Roy. 

 Soc, No. 205, p. 472). 



theory. In a very remarkable memoir in 

 the Philosophical Magazine he explained 

 the phosphorescence of glass under the 

 influence of the cathode stream by the 

 nearly abrupt changes in the magnetic 

 field arising from the sudden stoppage of 

 the cathode particles. 



The now generally accepted view that 

 our chemical elements have been formed 

 from one primordial substance was advo- 

 cated in 1888 by me when president of the 

 Chemical Society, * in connection with a 

 theory of the genesis of the elements. I 

 spoke of 'an infinite number of immeasur- 

 ably small ultimate— or, rather, ultimatis- 

 simate— particles gradually accreting out 

 of the formless mist, and moving with in- 

 conceivable velocity in all directions.' 



Pondering on some of the properties of 

 the rare elements, I strove to show that 

 the elementary atoms themselves might not 

 be the same now as when first generated— 

 that the primary motions which constitute 

 the existence of the atom might slowly 

 be changing, and even the secondary mo- 

 tions which produce all the effects we can 

 observe— heat, chemic, electric and so forth 

 —might in a slight degree be affected ; and 

 I showed the probability that the atoms of 

 the chemical elements were not eternal in 

 existence, but shared with the rest of cre- 

 ation the attributes of decay and death. 



The same idea was expanded at a lecture 

 I delivered at the Royal Institution in 1887, 

 when it was suggested that the atomic 

 weights were not invariable quantities. 



I might quote Mr. Herbert Spencer, Sir. 

 Benjamin Brodie, Professor Graham, Sir 

 George Stokes, Sir William Thomson (now 

 Lord Kelvin), Sir Norman Lockyer, Dr. 

 Gladstone and many other English savans 

 to show that the notion — not necessarily 

 of the decomposability but at any rate of 

 the complexity of our supposed elements 



* Pres. Address to Chem. Soc, March 28, 1888. 



