AS APPLIED TO MAX. 363 



The Nature of Matter. 



It has been long seen by the best thinkers on the 

 subject, that atoms, considered as minute solid bodies 

 from which emanate the attractive and repulsive forces 

 which give what we term matter its properties, could 

 serve no purpose whatever ; since it is universally 

 admitted that the supposed atoms never touch each 

 other, and it cannot be conceived that these homo- 

 geneous, indivisible, solid units, are themselves the 

 ultimate cause of the forces that emanate from their 

 centres. As, therefore, none of the properties of matter 

 can be due to the atoms themselves, but only to the 

 forces which emanate from the points in space indi- 

 cated by the atomic centres, it is logical continually 

 to diminish their size till they vanish, leaving only 

 localized 'centres of force to represent them. Of the 

 various attempts that have been made to show how 

 .the properties of matter may be due to such modified 

 atoms (considered as mere centres of force), the most 

 successful, because the simplest and the most logical, is 

 that of Mr. Bayma, who, in his "Molecular Mechanics,' * 

 has demonstrated how, from the simple assumption of 

 such centres having attractive and repulsive forces 

 (both varying according to the same law of the in- 

 verse squares as gravitation), and by grouping them in 

 symmetrical figures, consisting of a repulsive centre, an 

 attractive nucleus, and one or more repulsive envelopes, 

 we may explain all the general properties of matter; 

 and, by more and more complex arrangements, even 



