1896-97.] 375 



usually called the Chemical elements ; and that the vibrations 

 of these specific molecules have produced all the Frauenhoffer 

 lines which they have persistently seen and mapped in each 

 instance." In the article from which I have made these 

 quotations, N. Lockyer details an immense number of experi- 

 ments which lead him to " the conclusion that the so-called 

 elements of chemistry are not simple but are compounds? They 

 may, in some cases be compounds, but I intend, if time permit, 

 and your patience, to suggest what has been already hinted at 

 by more than one expert, that even those which are not 

 compounds are still buildings built up of the ultimate substance 

 of the material creation, the all-pervading ether. 



This conclusion of Lockyer's when followed in the other 

 direction, namely, the running up of temperature to its most 

 intense degree will be found when we attain to the evidence of 

 it experimentally, to resolve everything which we have been 

 accustomed to call chemical elements into something more 

 elemental still, truly elemental in the great sense — the element 

 of Ether ; and that the building up of the chemical molecules 

 out of this ultimate element is conducted by the great Builder, 

 who is called in the Liturgy " a Lover of Concord" on the same 

 lines as our Music of the air and in the ear, that we are 

 beginning to find embodied also, though unheard by mortal 

 ears, in the build of the crystals of the rocks which build the 

 great globe itself. 



Professor Henri Hertz, in " La Revue Scientiftque," October 

 26, 1888, says, " The nature of electricity is another problem 

 which recalls us to the condition of electric and magnetic forces 

 through space. Behind this question arises the most important 

 problem of all, that of the nature and properties of the substance 

 which fills all space — the Ether, its structure, its motion, its 

 limits, if it possesses any. We find this subject of research day 

 by day predominating over all others. It seems as if a 

 knowledge of Ether should unveil to us the essence of matter 

 and its inherent properties, weight and inertia. Soon the 

 question set by modern physics will be ' Are not all things due 

 to conditions of Ether f } " 4 



