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POLARITY IN MATTER
qualities of their constituent elements, but also on the maaner in which these elements are grouped. Two substances may have exactly the same chemical composition and yet be very different. As an instance of this, butyric acid, which gives the offensive odour to rancid butter, has exactly the same composition as acetic ether, which gives the flavour to a ripe apple. They consist of the same number of atoms of the same elements-carbon, hydrogen and oxygen-united in the same proportions. This applies to a number of substances, and is called Isomerism, or formation of different wholes from the same parts.
The principle of polarity, therefore, aided by the subsidiary conditions of quantivalence, atomnity, and Isomerism, gives the clue to the construction of the inorganic world out of some seventy elementary substances. Of the substances thus formed, some are stable and soire unstable. As a rule the simpler combinations are the most stable, and instability increases with complexity. Thus diamond, which is merely a crystal of pure carbon, is very hard and indestructible; while dynamite or nitroglycerine, which is a yery complex compound, explodes at a touch.
The universe consists of atons which are endowed with polarity, and that as diminished temperature allows these atoms to come closer together and form compourds, natter in all its forms is built up by the action of polar forces.
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