NUCLEUS AS SOURCE OF ENERGY 165 



to fit in with the two apparently diametrically 

 opposite points of view and to reconcile the 

 material with the immaterial aspects of the ques- 

 tion, by showing that they are both the conse- 

 quences of the energy which is stored up in the 

 aether which admits of various modes of transforma- 

 tion. Furthermore, it helps to give us a consistent 

 and harmonious view of the continuity of nature 

 and therefore also a Monistic theory of the material 

 and immaterial parts of which it consists. 



By material, of course, we mean the atomic and 

 by immaterial the infra-non-atomic phenomena of 

 sether : the former being more ephemeral, the latter, 

 which we are to some extent justified in regard- 

 ing as the immaterial, or spiritual if we wish to call 

 it so, being more permanent perhaps than material 

 phenomena. 



It may, of course, be objected that all these 

 phenomena are, strictly speaking, material in so far 

 as they are subject to the physical laws of nature, 

 and that therefore such distinctions are only a 

 matter of words. The objection is scarcely sound, 

 unless we mean by matter anything which is sub- 

 ject to physical law. But by matter as it is 

 generally understood we mean that matter which 

 manifests the ordinary physical and chemical phen- 

 omena of nature as distinct from those others 

 which have recently been found to owe their origin 

 to an ultra-atomic source and such others, known 

 as spiritual, which may yet be found. 



"We have no desire to confine the use of the 



