Page:Modern Views on Matter.djvu/21

 Rh and 350 negative, interleaved or interlocked in a state of violent motion so as to produce a stable configuration under the influence of their centrifugal inertia and their electric forces, constitutes an atom of hydrogen. That sixteen times as many, in another stable grouping, constitute an atom of oxygen. That some 16,000 of them go to form an atom of sodium; about 100,000 an atom of barium; and 160,000 an atom of radium.

On this view all the elements would be regarded as different groupings of one fundamental constituent. Of all the groupings possible, doubtless most are so unstable as never to be formed; but some are stable, or at least relatively stable, and these stabler groupings constitute the chemical elements that we know. The fundamental ingredient of which, on this view, the whole of matter is made up, is nothing more or less than electricity, in the form of an aggregate of an equal number of positive and negative electric charges.

This, when established, will be a unification of matter such as has through all the ages been sought; it goes further than had been hoped, for the substratum is not an unknown and hypothetical protyle, but the familiar electric charge. Nevertheless, of course, it is no ultimate explanation. The questions remain, what then is an electric charge? what is the internal structure and constitution of an electron? wherein lies the difference between positive and negative electricity? and what is their relation to the ether of space? Definite questions these, and doubtless some day answerable; indeed, powerful methods of attack on this position have been already contrived by Dr. J. Larmor and others; but they