THE NEW HYPOTZESIS. 591 
dealing with was matter, for it manifested the phenomena of matter under under- 
stood laws, while others show that it has phenomena peculiar to its condition, or 
which do not manifest themselves to our cognizance in any of the forms below it. 
Notably is this so as to colors. And by colors is not meant hues, merely, but 
colors that radiate and illuminate. This is something that no other form of mat- 
ter known displays; and it casts a shadow. What a startling suggestion. 
Now, crossing over from this disclosure of the vacuum tubes, let us take 
again the spectroscope, and we find that in one sphere of the emanations from 
the sun or its atmosphere, it bursts, so to speak, into a stupendous zone of color, 
and which in our barrenness of description is called the chromosphere. Is it then 
illogical to conclude that the radiant matter of the vacuum tube and the chromo- 
sphere of the sun are both but matter in the samestate or condition? And thus 
do we, in strict accord with scientific methods demonstrate the truth of the 
hypothesis. 
Now we get to a state of matter by two processes of analysis that present 
the same phenomenon—color—and we are for the first time, by physical methods, 
compelled to admit color into the family of entities, things, elements, or forces. 
Here then by regular methods of practical science, we are face to face with some- 
thing heretofore unrecognized and uncatalogued, and we must take a new depart- 
ure in investigation. We have reached a new continent and must push our ex- 
plorations from a new base of observation, and with a new element of interpreta- 
tion. 
As yet we have discovered nothing that contradicts the atomic theory, and 
all these experiments as to radiant matter are based upon that theory and all 
results are in harmony with it. Then we conclude that in one state or relation or 
combination of atoms, the result is color, and that modifications of color are 
only variations, so to speak, of the normal relation or state of atomic combina- 
tion that produces color; these colors of the vacuum tube, in one case, and the 
supreme glory of the chromosphere in the other. And now what? 
As this refined condition of matter must be before colors become its expres- 
sion, does not this refined matter interpenetrate everything and thus give to 
grosser matter, mineral, vegetable and animal, what we call their permanent tints, 
by which we read their nature as we read a book? And is not this refined matter 
but an expression of one of the phenomena of life, without which life cannot be? 
It must be so. 
And now, with these two states of matter, or rather matter reduced by the 
two methods of investigation to a condition that discloses not only its homogen- 
eous property, but its attenuation to a millionth part only of the density of air, 
what does it suggest? We refer next to the facts recited in the last paper already 
referred to, as disclosed by the microscope: that the molecules of living matter 
in the organisms of living beings, are simple, formless, colorless particles, that 
obey no known physical law, but as from some unknown source of power and 
store-house, build up the organism from a mere dimensionless point, endowed 
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