Perpetual Transmutation

Progress, Volume VIII, Issue 11, 1 July 1913, Page 567

Perpetual Transmutation

Peter Ellis

We may consider that the universe is built of a given quantity of matter, no more, no less, with a given quantity of force, no more, no less; but we have no proof of this. The idea also that matter and force are unlimited in quantity is also without proof,' and is inconceivable. I now advance the theory that matter and force are transmutable; that is to say, a process of “life’’ is continually going on, changing_ force into matter and matter into force, _ a continuous creation and re-creation, but there is no direct proof of this either. I am suggesting this theory from “intuition,” a sense, by the way, which has often led the .world by stepping out of scientific “ruts,” dscovering and evolving such “scientifically impossible” things as flying machines, wireless telegraphy, etc., etc I say “scientifically impossible,” because even the railway locomotive was “scientifically impossible” at its conception. Truly, we live in a wonderful world, where the “facts” of to-day become the fictions of to-morrow, note Ramsay Macdonald’s , wonderful discovery as lately reported in the newspapers. The question is: Can matter become force, and vice versa ? Let us go back to that fundamental law in chemistry, “When a chemical combination takes place heat is always developed.” Certain elements when mixed together do not lie side by side, quiescent, like gravel and sand, say, but they combine, penetrating one another, form a “new” substance, and generate heat. Now, heat is force, and whether we say that this force was “latent” within the substances, or that some of the substance has been transmuted into force, one theory seems as reasonable as the other. Anyhow, the “transmutation” theory serves to explain the balance of existence and many complex problems.. Familiar examples of the working of this theory may be seen in animals, trees, etc. An animal’s life is kept up by the chemical combination of the food it eats and the air it breathes; force is generated (life) by the transmutation of material into force, and, again, force into material; when an animal ceases to eat and breathe, life is extinguished and the material body is decomposed. Trees grow in virtue of force being transmuted into material, and they decompose into force again, sometimes by being burnt by fire, and more often by natural decay. The coal beds are but pent-up stores of material, ready to burst into force or energy when once set going. The elements composing gunpowder will lie side by side as a mere mechanical mixture for ever (but for deterioration), unless the spark necessary to start chemical combination is applied, when force is generated. lam assuming that this transmutation theory is a fact, without being able to prove it; suffice it to say that lam aware that it is dead against the theories of some of our intellectual giants (note the theory of the conservation of energy), but unless we believe that science “evolves,” and, therefore, is not in all things infallible, 'we cannot progress or make any new discoveries. “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”