m to a few rays, the unaffected lines being derived
from a totally distinct mass of the same substance shining with its
ordinary emissions.[662] Thus, calcium can be rendered virtually
monochromatic by attenuation, and analogous cases are not rare.

Sir Norman Lockyer only asks us to believe that effects which follow
certain causes on the earth are carried a stage further in the sun,
where the same causes must be vastly intensified. We find that the
bodies we call "compound" split asunder at fixed degrees of heat
_within_ the range of our resources. Why should we hesitate to admit
that the bodies we call "simple" do likewise at degrees of heat
_without_ the range of our resources? The term "element" simply
expresses terrestrial incapability of reduction. That, in celestial
laboratories, the means and their effect here absent should be present,
would be an inference challenging, in itself, no expression of
incredulity.

There are indeed theoretical objections to it which, though probably not
insuperable, are unquestionably grave. Our seventy chemical "elements,"
for instance, are placed by the law of specific heats on a separate
footing from their known compounds. We are not, it is true, compelled by
it to believe their atoms to be really and absolutely such--to contain,
that is, the "irreducible minimum" of material substance; but we do
certainly gather from it that they are composed on a different principle
from the salts and oxides made and unmade at pleasure by chemists. Then
the multiplication of the species of matter with which Lockyer's results
menace us, is at first sight startling. They may lead, we are told, to
eventual unification, but the prospect appears remote. Their only
obvious outcome is the disruption into several constituents of each
terrestrial "element." The components of iron alone should be counted by
the dozen. And there are other metals, such as cerium, which, giving a
still more complex spectrum, would doubtless be still more numerously
resolved. Sir Norman Lockyer interprets the observed phenomena as
indicating the successive combinations, in varying proportions, of a
very few original ingredients;[663] but no definite sign of their
existence is perceptible; "protyle" seems likely long to evade
recognition; and the only intelligible underlying principle for the
reasonings employed--that of "one line, one element"--implies a throng
beyond counting of formative material units.

Thus, added com