pe, or order, of density. But now comes the
startling part of the investigation: we might expect matter to be a
densification of this koilon; it is nothing of the kind. Matter is not
koilon, but _the absence of koilon_, and at first sight, matter and space
appear to have changed places, and emptiness has become solidity, solidity
has become emptiness.

To help us to understand this clearly let us examine the ultimate atom of
the physical plane (see pp. 21-23). It is composed of ten rings or wires,
which lie side by side, but never touch one another. If one of these wires
be taken away from the atom, and be, as it were, untwisted from its
peculiar spiral shape and laid out on a flat surface, it will be seen that
it is a complete circle--a tightly twisted endless coil. This coil is
itself a spiral containing 1680 turns; it can be unwound, and it will then
make a much larger circle. This process of unwinding may be again
performed, and a still bigger circle obtained, and this can be repeated
till the seven sets of spirillae are all unwound, and we have a huge circle
of the tiniest imaginable dots, like pearls threaded on an invisible
string. These dots are so inconceivably small that many millions of them
are needed to make one ultimate physical atom, and while the exact number
is not readily ascertainable, several different lines of calculation agree
in indicating it as closely approximate to the almost inconceivable total
of fourteen thousand millions. Where figures are so huge, direct counting
is obviously impossible, but fortunately the different parts of the atom
are sufficiently alike to enable us to make an estimate in which the margin
of error is not likely to be very great. The atom consists of ten wires,
which divide themselves naturally into two groups--the three which are
thicker and more prominent, and the seven thinner ones which correspond to
the colors and planets. These latter appear to be identical in constitution
though the forces flowing through them must differ, since each responds
most readily to its own special set of vibrations. By actual counting it
has been discovered that the numbers of coils or spirillae of the first
order in each wire is 1680; and the proportion of the different orders of
spirillae to one another is equal in all cases that have been examined, and
correspond with the number of dots in the ultimate spirillae of the lowest
order. The ordinary sevenfold rule works quite accurately wi