n, and certainly mislaid, some of
the bits; and not even a watchmaker could put it together again. You
would have analysed the watch wrongly. But if a watchmaker took it to
pieces then any other watchmaker could put it together again to go as
well as ever, because they both understand the works, how they fit into
each other, and what the use and the power of each is. Its being put
together again rightly would be a proof that it had been taken to pieces
rightly.

And so with Master Analysis. If he can take a thing to pieces so that
his brother Synthesis can put it together again, you may be sure that he
has done his work rightly.

Now he can take a bit of chalk to pieces, so that it shall become several
different things, none of which is chalk, or like chalk at all. And then
his brother Synthesis can put them together again, so that they shall
become chalk, as they were before. He can do that very nearly, but not
quite. There is, in every average piece of chalk, something which he
cannot make into chalk again when he has once unmade it.

What that is I will show you presently; and a wonderful tale hangs
thereby. But first we will let Analysis tell us what chalk is made of,
as far as he knows.

He will say--Chalk is carbonate of lime.

But what is carbonate of lime made of?

Lime and carbonic acid.

And what is lime?

The oxide of a certain metal, called calcium.

What do you mean?

That quicklime is a certain metal mixed with oxygen gas; and slacked lime
is the same, mixed with water.

So lime is a metal. What is a metal? Nobody knows.

And what is oxygen gas? Nobody knows.

Well, Analysis, stops short very soon. He does not seem to know much
about the matter.

Nay, nay, you are wrong there. It is just "about the matter" that he
does know, and knows a great deal, and very accurately; what he does not
know is the matter itself. He will tell you wonderful things about
oxygen gas--how the air is full of it, the water full of it, every living
thing full of it; how it changes hard bright steel into soft, foul rust;
how a candle cannot burn without it, or you live without it. But what it
is he knows not.

Will he ever know?

That is Lady Why's concern, and not ours. Meanwhile he has a right to
find out if he can. But what do you want to ask him next?

What? Oh! What carbonic acid is. He can tell you that. Carbon and
oxygen gas.

But what is carbon?

Nobody knows.

Why, here is