The Evolution of Matter - the book
The Evolution of Matter - Table of Contents

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This work is devoted to the study of the Evolution of Matter - that is to say, of the fundamental component of things, of the substratum of the worlds and of the beings which exist on their surface.

It represents the synthesis of the experimental researches which I have during the last eight years published in numerous memoirs. In their result they have shown the insufficiency of certain fundamental scientific principles on which rests the edifice of our physical and chemical knowledge.

According to a doctrine which seemed settled for ever, and the building up of which has required a century of persistent labour, while all things in the universe are condemned to perish, two elements alone, Matter and Force, escape this fatal law. They undergo transformations without ceasing, but remain indestructible and consequently immortal.

The facts brought to light by my researches, as well as by those to which they have led, show that, contrary to this belief, matter is not eternal, and can vanish without return. They likewise prove that the atom is the reservoir of a force hitherto unrecognized, although it exceeds by its immensity those forces with which we are acquainted, and that it may perhaps be the origin of most others, notably of electricity and solar heat.

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Lastly, they reveal that, between the world of the ponderable and that of the imponderable, till now considered widely separate, there exists an intermediate world.

For several years I was alone in upholding these ideas. Finally, however, their validity has been admitted, after numbers of physicists have determined in various ways the facts I have pointed out, principally those which demonstrate the universality of the dissociation of matter. It was above all the discovery of radium, long after my first researches, that fixed attention on these questions.

Let not the reader be alarmed at the boldness of some of the views which will be set forth herein. They are throughout supported by experimental facts. It is with these for guides that I have endeavoured to penetrate unknown regions, where I had to find my way in thick darkness. This darkness does not clear away in a day, and for that reason he who tries to mark out a new road at the cost of strenuous efforts is rarely called to look at the horizon to which it may lead.

It is not without prolonged labour and heavy expense that the facts detailed in this volume have been established.[1] If I have not yet obtained the suffrages of all the learned, and if I have incensed

[1 To make this book easier lo read, the experiments in detail have been brought together at the end of the volume, to which they form a second part. All the plates illustrating the experiments have been drawn or photographed by my devoted assistant, M. F. Michaux. I here express my thanks to him for his daily assistance at my laboratory during the many years over which my researches have extended. I also owe hearty thanks to my friend E. Senechal, and the eminent Professor Dwelshauvers-Dery, Corresponding Member of the Institut, who have kindly revised the proofs of this volume.]

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many among them by pointing out the fragility of dogmas which once possessed the authority of revealed truths, at least I have met with some valiant champions amongst eminent physicists, and my researches have been the cause of many others. One can hardly expect more, especially when attacking principles some of which were considered unshakeable. The great Lamarck uttered no ephemeral truth when he said, "Whatever the difficulties in discovering new truths, there are still greater ones in getting them recognized."

I should be armed with but scant philosophy if I remained surprised at the attacks of several physicists, or at the exasperation of a certain number of worthy people, and especially at the silence of the greater number of the scholars who have utilized my experiments.

Gods and dogmas do not perish in a day. To try to prove that the atoms of all bodies, which were deemed eternal, are not so, gave a shock to all received opinions. To endeavour to show that matter, hitherto considered inert, is the reservoir of a colossal energy, the probable source of most of the forces of the universe, was bound to shock more ideas still. Demonstrations of this kind touching the very roots of our knowledge, and shaking scientific edifices centuries old, are generally received in anger or in silence till the day when, having been made over again in detail by the numerous seekers whose attention has been aroused, they become so widespread and so commonplace that it is almost impossible to point out their first discoverer.

It matters little, in reality, that he who has sown should not reap. It is enough that the harvest

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grows. Of all occupations which may take up the too brief hours of life, none perhaps is so worthy as the search for unknown truths, the opening out of new paths in that immense unknown which surrounds us.