--gross matter--fades away. To the three
states in which we have always known it, the solid, the liquid, and the
gaseous, we must add a fourth, the ethereal--the state of matter which
Sir Oliver Lodge thinks borders on, or is identical with, what we call
the spiritual, and which affords the key to all the occult phenomena of
life and mind.

As we have said, no human eye has ever seen, or will see, an atom; only
the mind's eye, or the imagination, sees atoms and molecules, yet the
atomic theory of matter rests upon the sure foundation of experimental
science. Both the chemist and the physicist are as convinced of the
existence of these atoms as they are of the objects we see and touch.
The theory "is a necessity to explain the experimental facts of chemical
composition." "Through metaphysics first," says Soddy, "then through
alchemy and chemistry, through physical and astronomical spectroscopy,
lastly through radio-activity, science has slowly groped its way to the
atom." The physicists make definite statements about these hypothetical
bodies all based upon definite chemical phenomena. Thus Clerk Maxwell
assumes that they are spherical, that the spheres are hard and elastic
like billiard-balls, that they collide and glance off from one another
in the same way, that is, that they collide at their surfaces and not at
their centres.

Only two of our senses make us acquainted with matter in a state which
may be said to approach the atomic--smell and taste. Odors are material
emanations, and represent a division of matter into inconceivably small
particles. What are the perfumes we smell but emanations, flying atoms
or electrons, radiating in all directions, and continuing for a shorter
or longer time without any appreciable diminution in bulk or weight of
the substances that give them off? How many millions or trillions of
times does the rose divide its heart in the perfume it sheds so freely
upon the air? The odor of the musk of certain animals lingers under
certain conditions for years. The imagination is baffled in trying to
conceive of the number and minuteness of the particles which the fox
leaves of itself in the snow where its foot was imprinted--so palpable
that the scent of a hound can seize upon them hours after the fox has
passed! The all but infinite divisibility of matter is proved by every
odor that the breeze brings us from field and wood, and by the delicate
flavors that the tongue detects in the food we eat