The atom can scarcely be said to be a "thing," though it is the material out of which all things physical are composed. It is formed by the flow of the life-force[5] and vanishes with its ebb. When this force arises in "space"[6]--the apparent void which must be filled with substance of some kind, of inconceivable tenuity--atoms appear; if this be artificially stopped for a single atom, the atom disappears; there is nothing left. Presumably, were that flow checked but for an instant, the whole physical world would vanish, as a cloud melts away in the empyrean. It is only the persistence of that flow[7] which maintains the physical basis of the universe.[8] In order to examine the construction of the atom, a space is artificially made[9]; then, if an opening be made in the wall thus constructed, the surrounding force flows in, and three whorls immediately appear, surrounding the "hole" with their triple spiral of two and a half coils, and returning to their origin by a spiral within the atom; these are at once followed by seven finer whorls, which following the spiral of the first three on the outer surface, and returning to their origin by a spiral within that, flowing in the opposite direction--form a caduceus with the first three. Each of the three coarser whorls, flattened out, makes a closed circle; each of the seven finer ones, similarly flattened out, makes a closed circle. The forces which flow in them, again, come from "outside," from a fourth-dimensional space.[10] Each of the finer whorls is formed of seven yet finer ones, set successively at right angles to each other, each finer than its predecessor; these we call spirillæ.[11] It will be understood from the foregoing, that the atom cannot be said to have a wall of its own, unless these whorls of force can be so designated; its "wall" is the pressed back "space." As said in 1895, of the chemical atom, the force "clears itself a space, pressing back the undifferentiated matter of the plane, and making to itself a whirling wall of this matter." The wall belongs to space, not to the atom. In the three whorls flow currents of different electricities; the seven vibrate in response to etheric waves of all kinds--to sound, light, heat, etc.; they show the seven colours of the spectrum; give out the seven sounds of the natural scale; respond in a variety of ways to physical vibration--flashing, singing, pulsing bodies, they move incessantly, inconceivably beautiful and brilliant.[12]