Hydrogen is seen in the spectra of nearly all stars, and also in those of nebulæ. The elemental lines of oxygen are not indeed seen in stellar spectra, but that the element is present is shown by the flutings of titanium oxide which distinguish stars like Antares. Nitrogen and carbon again are not recognized by their elemental lines, but the lines of cyanogen are seen in the spectra of comets and of sunspots, and hydrocarbon flutings in the spectra of comets and red stars; while in a few of the hottest stars even sulphur has recently been identified.[10] All the five organo-genetic elements are therefore abundantly diffused through space; the materials for protoplasm, "the albuminous substance with water," are at hand everywhere. This being so, it is reasonable to infer that if organic life exists elsewhere than on this Earth, its essential feature, there as here, is the metabolism of nitrogenous carbon compounds in association with protoplasm.
But it is objected that "we are not yet able to identify all the lines in solar or stellar spectra; may not some of these lines be due to elements of which we know nothing here, and may not such new elements form complex and unstable compounds with each other, or with some of those familiar to us, that would take the place of the five organo-generators, and so give rise to a physical basis of life, different from that we know on this Earth?"
But the development of Mendeléeff's Periodic Law has shown that the elements are not to be regarded as disconnected entities. The Law as given in Mendeléeff's own words, runs: "The properties of the elements as well as the forms and properties of their compounds are in periodic dependence on, or (expressing ourselves algebraically) form a periodic function of the atomic weights of the elements." In other words, they form a series, not only as it regards their atomic weights, but also as it regards their own properties and the forms and properties of their compounds. We are no longer at liberty, as we might have been many years ago, to call into fancied existence new elements having no relation in their properties and compounds to those with which we are acquainted. New elements, no doubt, will be discovered in the future, as in the past; and indeed we may be able to discover them and learn their atomic weights and properties without ever being able to handle them in a terrestrial laboratory.