Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PAET H. THE PERIODIC LAW. CHAPTER I. The Mystery Of Matter. We believe—we must believe, in this day—that everything in God's universe of world and stars is made of atoms, in quantities x, y or z respectively. Men and women, mice and elephants, the red belts of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn are one and all are but ever shifting, ever varying, swarms of atoms. Every mechanical work of earth, air, fire and water, every criminal act, every human deed of love or valor: what is it all, pray, but the relation of one swarm of atoms to another ? Here, for example, is a swarm of atoms, vibrating, scin- tillant, martial,—they call it a soldier,—and, anon, some thousands of miles away upon the South African veldt, that swarm dissolves,—dissolves, forsooth, because of another little swarm,—they call it lead. What a phantasmagoric dance it is, this dance of atoms! And what a task for the Master of the Ceremonies. For mark you the mutabilities of things. These same atoms, maybe, or others like them, come together again, vibrating, clustering, interlocking, combining, and there results a woman, a flower, a blackbird or a locust, as the case may be. But to-morrow again the dance is ended and theatoms are far away; some of them are in the fever germs that broke up the dance, others are " the green hair of the grave," and others are blown about the antipodes on the winds of ocean. The mutabilities of things, and likewise the tears of things: for one thing after another, "Like snow upon the Desert's dusty Face Lighting a little hour or two—is gone," and the eternal, ever-changing dance goes on. Now, whether we call the atoms God's little servants or the Devil's agents, one thing is sure—that every action of every thing, living or dead, within this bourne of time and space,...