THE MYSTERY OF MATTER.

TN days when the land of literature is lying fallow and _L unweeded, the adjoining country of science is in full cultivation. Fruit and flower, fulfilment and promise, are to be seen side by aide throughout this great area, and above it there shines a sky of such transcendent hopefulness that the toilers of the field have become, as it were, incapable of dis- couragement, and seem to be inspired with the very spirit of romance. Indeed, to change the metaphor, the scientist of to-day looks upon the universe with much the same mind that the Elizabethan seaman looked upon the New World. He has made his mirabilis navigatio, he is coasting, as never Bacon coasted, the "New Intellectual World," and there are no limits to his dreams of the wonderful things that will be found far inland from the coast when something of a base has been created. In this attitude of the scientific mind there is hope for literature if we may judge from analogy. The great discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries directly inspired the noble Elizabethan literature, and it is perhaps not rash to surmise that the intellectual movement which is represented by modern science in its most romantic aspects will at least give us a great new literature. If it gives us this, it will perhaps have brought the personality of man nearer to a conception of the meaning of things than it could be brought by any analysis of mind or matter.

Such analysis, however, is the task that a great group of modern thinkers have set themselves. To solve the mystery of matter by daring analyses of pieces of matter; to solve the mystery of mind by equally daring analyses of detached mental processes,—such solutions are seriously sought by the greatest thinkers of the day. Philosophy in the face of 'such a movement is compelled either to mark time and to endeavour to fit into her schemes of thought such of the new results as cannot be neglected, or to create for herself a new trans- cendentalism that deals, not with matter or mind as it is, but as it would be if it were evolved by logical up-building from certain fundamental logical concepts. In this latter case she is at least able to tell Science that her tools of analysis are really only applicable to such an ideal world, and not to the actual universe of matter and motion. Whether Philosophy and Science will be able to find a common ground of action is at least as doubtful as the more usual inquiry as to the ground common to Science and Religion. If it is true that these latter both claim Creative Directive Force as the capital of their dominions, it is equally true that Philosophy is incapable of detaching herself from something equally all-pervading and equally elusive. "Shadows we are, and shadows we pursue ;" the realities between the shadows and the sun, the sun that casts the shadows, these are the things that we would fain realise, and perhaps the most notable fact of the present day is the refusal to believe that realisation in an intellectual sense is impossible. The fact of such an attitude means probably more for the human race than the investigations that the attitude demands.

These investigations, involving a machinery of mathematical analysis that few understand, are scarcely capable of explana- tion here. The conception of anther as a "flawless continuous medium which is the transmitter of radiant energy across the

celestial spaces" is fundamental, since, as Dr. Larmor told the British Association in 1900 at Bradford, it is "a real formulation of the underlying unity in physical dynamics." Dr. Larmor in this famous address told the Association that— "The domain of abstract physics is in fact roughly divisible into two regions. In one of them we are mainly concerned with inter- actions between one portion of matter and another portion occupying a different position in apace; such interactions have very uniform and comparatively simple relations ; and the reason. is traceable to the simple and uniform constitution of the inter- vening medium in which they have their seat. The other pro- vince is that in which the distribution of the material molecules comes into account. Setting aside the ordinary dynamics of matter in bulk, which is founded on the uniformity of the pro- perties of the bodies concerned and their experimental determins-' tion, we must assign to this region all phenomena which are concerned with the unco-ordinated motions of the molecules, including the range of thermal and in part of radiant actions; the'

only possible basis for detailed theory is the statistical dynamics of the distribution of the molecules. The far more deep-seated and _

mysterious processes which are involved in changes in the constitu- tion of the individual molecules themselves aremainly outside the province of physics, which is competent to reason only ataut permanent material systems; they must be left to the sciences of

chemistry and physiology. Yet the chemist proclaims that he can determine only theY results of his reactions and the 'physical conditions under which they occur. . . . . . The complication of the material world is referable to the vast range of structure and of states of aggregation in the material atoms ; while the possi- bility of a science of physics is largely due to the simplicity of constitution of the universal medium through which the individual atoms interact on each other."

This was published leas than three years ago. Since then the problem of matter has been attacked from two sides. Professor Osborne Reynolds has published his work—the result of twenty years of profound research—on "The Sub- Mechanics of the Universe," in which he asserts, not a flawless continuous aether, but a granular structure of the spaces of the universe that not only explains all observed phenomena and the cause of gravitation, but reveals "the

prime cause of the physical properties of matter." Pro- fessor Reynolds claims that his theory establishes the -purely mechanical structure of the universe, and displaces the con- ception of "action at a distance." The chief fact of interest

about this theory of matter at present is that there appear to be few, if any, mathematicians capable of following the

demonstration, and none strong enough to attack it,—a some- what remarkable state of things. The other side from which the problem has been approached is with respect to "changes in the constitution of the individual molecules themselves." Some of the results of these investigations have come before the public in the Times reports of Sir William Crookes'a address to the International Congress for Applied Chemistry sitting

at Berlin on June 4th, and of the Romance Lecture delivered by Sir Oliver Lodge at Oxford on June 14th. Sir William Crookes told his audience that chemists now admitted "the possibility of resolving the chemical elements into simpler forms of matter, or even, of refining them away altogether into ethereal vibrations or electrical energy." He declared that "a number of isolated hypotheses as to the existence of matter in an ultra-gaseous state, the existence of material particles smaller than atoms, the existence of electrical ions or electrons, the constitution of Röntgen rays and their passage through opaque bodies, the emanations from Uranium, and the dissociation of the elements were now welded into one harmonious theory by the discovery of Radium." He added that if the hypothesis of the electronic constitution of matter were pushed to its logical limit, it is possible that we are now witnessing the spontaneous dissociation of Radium, and if so, must "begin to doubt the permanent stability of matter."

If this is so, the "formless mist" may once more reign supreme, and the visible universe dissolve. Such a dream is comparable to the great German's philosophic view that the universe merely exists by an effort of a central Will, aud that if this were withdrawn it would vanish The baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind!'

Sir Oliver Lodge in his elaborate and brilliant Romanes Lecture developed a similar view. He suggested the hypo- thesis that atoms of matter are actually composed of con- centrated portions of electricity which could, exist separately or in association. Seven hundred such electrons in violent orbital motion among themselves would constitute a hydrogen atom, eleven thousand two hundred electrons would form an oxygen atom, and a hundred and fifty thousand an atom of radium. We, on this theory, have arrived at the ultimate chemical particle, various combinations of which form all the infinitely diverse aspects of matter. "The attractiveness of this hypothesis is that it represents a unification of matter and a reduction of all material substance to a purely electric phenomenon." This electrical theory of matter involves two consequences,—a continual increase in the velocity of the con- stituents of an atom, and the ultimate instability of those constituents. There is thus a state of flux and decay "in the foundation stones of the universe, the elemental atoms themselves." Myra th'i• Sir Oliver Lodge, however, seems to think that there is at the same time a system

of reaggregation of particles at work that constitutes, a. regenerative process which will preserve the universe by the. creation' of new forms of matter in the place of forms that ' have dissolved. It is therefore possible that by a process of evolution we shall arrive in time at an entirely new universe.

This is, perhaps, a more cheerful conception than that of Sir William Crookes. However, neither of these great thinkers is- dogmatic. - "It must never be forgotten," said Sir William Crookes, "that theories are only useful so long as they admit. of the harmonious correlation of facts into a reasonable system. Directly a fact refuses to be pigeon-holed, and will not be explained on theoretic grounds, the theory must go, or- it must be revised to admit the new fact."

We are clearly on the verge of great revelations, and the theory of electrons has at any rate that characteristic of ultimate simplicity of structure which seems a priori to be a, necessity of any explanation, It can no longer be said "that' the intimate details of atomic 'constitu- tion are beyond our scrutiny." But the theory leaves us face to face with mysteries still unsolved. What is the nature of the universal nether? What is the nature of electric phenomena? What are these things which can evolve out of their structureless simplicity the infinite com- plexities of the earth and heavens ? We indeed seem com- pelled to reiterate in the light of the most recent investiga- tions the conclusion of-Tennyson :— " Only That which made us, meant us to be mightier by and by, • Set the sphere of all the boundless Heavens within the human eye, Sent the shadow of Himself, the boundless, thro' the human soul ; Boundless, inward, in the atom, boundless, outward, in the ' Whole."

Electricity as the basis of matter seems to reveal the need for science to recognise an indwelling Directive Force more perhaps than any other of the various suggested bases. To evolve complexity out of unity demands at least Directive Intelligence. This convergence in their essentials of religion and science is not the least significant fact of modern thought and modern faith.