FOREWORD. 
THE author desires to explain that the method in which he 
has attacked the great problem with which this treatise deals 
was settled for him by the fact that it was the discovery of 
Radium by Madam Curie, and the philosophic explanations 
of Professors Rutherford and Soddy with regard to radium 
phenomena, that enabled him to jump to the apprehension 
of the speed theory of material combination, which has 
formed the germ from which this sketch of a true natural 
philosophy has developed. 
His acknowledgments and thanks are due to the many 
eminent men, at home or abroad, living or dead, who have 
helped him by their books, their delicate and difficult 
experiments, their wonderful calculations and clever practical 
work. They are too truly great to be offended by the efforts 
of another, however humble, to solve, with their assistance, 
the great unsolvable. Write with diffidence for the great he 
must ; but their greatness only gives him confidence, because 
he knows that he is taking his pearls to a right market, 
where they can be tested and appreciated, where their beauty 
will please and their purity entrance. 
In referring to Sir Isaac Newton the author has no desire 
to belittle his genius. Sir Isaac was a giant; but like other 
great men he made mistakes. It would be unwise to accept 
and perpetuate what is untrue. 
