Besides, certain peculiarities in the conductivity of metals cannot be explained without a supposition of this kind.

So that the atom, deprived of the cathode corpuscle, would be still liable to decomposition into elements analogous to electrons and positively charged.

Consequently nothing prevents us supposing that this centre likewise simulates inertia by its electromagnetic properties, and is but a condition localised in the ether.
[Footnote 51: There is much reason for thinking that the canal rays do not contain positive particles alone, but are accompanied by negative electrons of slow velocity.

The X rays are thought, as has been said above, to contain neither negative nor positive particles, but to be merely pulses in the ether .-- ED.] However this may be, the edifice thus constructed, being composed of electrons in periodical motion, necessarily grows old.

The electrons become subject to accelerations which produce a radiation towards the exterior of the atom; and certain of them may leave the body, while the primitive stability is, in the end, no longer assured, and a new arrangement tends to be formed.