are brought back to Plato's old aphorism that the Universe consists of
Number and Motion.

The size of these etheric particles is small beyond anything but
abstract mathematical conception. Sir Oliver Lodge is reported to have
made the following comparison in a lecture delivered at Birmingham. "The
chemical atom," he said, "is as small in comparison to a drop of water
as a cricket-ball is compared to the globe of the earth; and yet this
atom is as large in comparison to one of its constituent particles as
Birmingham town-hall is to a pin's head." Again, it has been said that
in proportion to the size of the particles the distance at which they
revolve round the centre of the atom is as great as the distance from
the earth to the sun. I must leave the realization of such infinite
minuteness to the reader's imagination--it is beyond mine.

Modern science thus shows us all material substance, whether that of
inanimate matter or that of our own bodies, as proceeding out of one
primary etheric substance occupying all space and homogeneous, that is
being of a uniform substance--and having no qualities to distinguish one
part from another. Now this conclusion of science is important because
it is precisely the fact that out of this homogeneous substance
particles are produced which differ from the original substance in that
they possess positive and negative energy and of these particles the
atom is built up. So then comes the question: What started this
differentiation?

The electronic theory which I have just mentioned takes us as far as a
universal homogeneous ether as the source from which all matter is
evolved, but it does not account for how motion originated in it; but
perhaps another closely allied scientific theory will help us. Let us,