It may not be out of place to mention some of the substances in daily use. For example, water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen. Air is composed of oxygen and nitrogen. Bread, of starch, sugars—oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. Meats, of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, etc. Salt, of sodium and chlorine. Vegetables, fruits, etc., of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. Fats, of oil. alcohols, of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The tissues of the animal body are composed of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen.
The combination of five elements produces electricity, thus: Zinc (Zn) + copper (Cu) + sulphuric acid, which consists of hydrogen (H2), sulphur (S), and oxygen (O4), = electricity.
A few examples in the changes of the combination of oxygen and hydrogen are shown in water. Under conditions of heat and cold it becomes ice, steam, dew, rain, hail, snow, clouds, etc., etc. These phenomena are known.
We merely mention these facts to show how much has been discovered by human skill, but of how much more remains to be discovered we can not form the slightest notion. All that has been done in the field of science has been of actual benefit to humanity. For the discoveries are based on fact and truth. They are ushered into this world to alleviate and to lighten the struggle and the burden of men. They come without oppression, without crime, without bloodshed. They come as the great benefactors of mankind. Men would be much better off to-day if they received for their Sunday lessons instruction in the natural, instead of wasting their precious time in repeating the silly twaddle of supernatural extravagance, that tends to stupefy instead of clearing up the understanding.
Scientific research has advanced so far, that not only are we able to know, from the discoveries made, the elementary composition of this earth, and all that belongs thereto, but other far more difficult problems have been partially solved. That is, with the aid of newly discovered instruments, we can ascertain, to a considerable extent, the elementary composition of the sun, stars, and distant planets.
In 1802 Dr. Wollaston, and later Fraunhofer, discovered and perfected an instrument called the spectroscope. It consists of a prism, fixed upon an iron stand, and a tube carrying a slit. When light passes through a slit it impinges upon a flint glass prism, by which it is dispersed. The light of burning metals has been tested in that manner. Thus when any light passes through the slit of a spectroscope, the substance giving the light may be determined, the elements burning ascertained. If the solar spectrum be examined—the light of the sun’s rays—numerous dark lines parallel with the edge of the prism are observed, and reveal a number of colors giving the following: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. These are intersected by fine black lines of different degrees of breadth and shade, which are always present, and always occupy the same relative position in the solar spectrum. These are called Fraunhofer’s lines. By the means of this instrument, the spectra of the sun, planets, and moon have been analyzed, and the color and position, the kind of metals these distant bodies are composed of. The sun’s atmosphere, from experiments made, is known to contain metals, such as soda, iron, etc., in the condition of glowing gas, the white light proceeding from the solid or liquid strongly heated mass of the sun which lies in the interior. The metals hitherto detected in the sun’s atmosphere are about fifteen or more—iron, sodium, strontium, cadmium, magnesium, calcium, chromium, nickel, barium, zinc, cobalt, manganese, aluminium, titanium, hydrogen, etc.
So delicate is this instrument that 1⁄180000000 part of a grain of sodium can be detected, and a portion of lithium weighing 1⁄6000000 part of a grain has been detected; thus showing that there exists a very strong probability that the sun, planets, and moons are composed of similar, if not the same, elements that this earth is composed of.
[1] Explanation.—The Roman numerals placed opposite the above list of elementary substances present the difference or equivalent or saturating power of each element. Hydrogen, for example, is a monad, a simple particle, or atom, or unit. Oxygen is a dyad, represented by II, two. It requires two atoms of hydrogen to saturate one of oxygen, or its equivalent, to form water. A triad, III, requires three monads; a tetrad, IV, four; a pentad, V, five; a sexad, VI, six units or monads, their respective equivalents or saturating power. A monad or monogenic element replaces another one by one. An atom of a polygenic element, that is, a dyad, etc., on the other hand, always takes the place of, or is equivalent to, two or more atoms of a monogenic element. [↑]