riance with this earlier knowledge; to him it is an impossibility.

How often the fallacy of such ultra-conservative principles has been
demonstrated has no bearing upon the case; the fact remains--irrational,
stupid though it be--that, sublimely indifferent to criticism, it
survives, with all the wrong and persecution that follows in its train.

But one of the most noticeable surprises of this description occurred in
the year 1896, when Professor Roentgen made public his discovery of the
X-rays; for through this discovery facts were disclosed such for
instance, as the permeability of solid bodies by luminous rays and the
possibility of photographic examination of bony tissues in living
creatures--facts entirely incompatible with prevailing ideas and
teachings. But these facts were not only intrinsically veracious but
were capable of occular demonstration, beyond all possibility of doubt,
and thus, as nothing could be changed or refuted, _science found itself
compelled, for once, to honour the truth in its initial stage_--to
receive them gracefully unto itself and adopt them in its teachings.

This discovery of the X-rays was followed closely by that of the N-rays,
by the two Curies, husband and wife. This further discovery was a still
greater surprise to the scientific world than the former one; for by its
aid was established nothing less than the inconstancy of matter.
Hitherto science, dealing not with knowledge, but with opinions, had
held the belief that the atom is the ultimate form of matter and that no
chemical or physical force can divide it, a teaching held to be
incontrovertible.

First, the discovery of the X-rays had markedly disturbed this belief,
and then, on the discovery of the N-rays, it soon became indubitably
clear that a constant destruction is taking place within the atom, an
uninterrupted throwing off of smaller particles.

But it is not our task to show how one discovery after another was made.
We are merely interested in knowing that, because of these discoveries,
we find today in the atom--not in the radium atom alone, but in every
atom as such--only a union of particles identical with one another, the
so-called electrons, being but special forms of electro-magnetic forces.

Professor Gruner writes as follows: "The atom is no longer the accepted,
final unit of matter, but has given place to the electron.

The atom is no longer an individual compact particle of matter, but an
aggregate of