226 NATURAL SCIENCE. Oct., 



if it is deducible by logical reasoning from other laws. It is the 

 former when it is only discovered as a fact to be a law." The 

 highest goal of science is to reduce ultimate laws to one or two, the 

 necessity for which lies outside the sphere of our cognition. The 

 ultimate laws are the dynamical relations of matter to number, space, 

 and time. The ultimate data will be number, matter, space, and 

 time themselves. If, as Professor Hicks apparently expects, it turn 

 out that all phenomena are manifestations of motion of one single 

 continuous medium, then the notion of force will be unnecessary, and 

 the study of dynamics will be replaced by study of the equation of 

 continuity. So, in the far future, all the ultimate problems are to be 

 for mathematicians. 



Even in the meantime the constitution of atoms and the constitu- 

 tion of the ether are problems chiefly for mathematicians. For, 

 although we may take these to be seeable things, they are unseeable 

 to us "because our senses are too cross-grained to transmit impres- 

 sions of them to our mind." " The ordinary methods of investigation 

 here fail us ; we must proceed by a special method, and make a 

 bridge of communication between the mechanism and our senses by 

 means of hypotheses. By our imagination, experience, intuition, we 

 form theories. We deduce the consequences of these theories on 

 phenomena which come within the range of our senses, and reject or 

 modify, or try again." The special theories with which Professor 

 Hicks was dealing were the vortex-atom theory of matter and the 

 vortex-sponge theory of the ether. The older theories, those which 

 most of us were taught, held that atoms were rigid and that ether, 

 although of extreme tenuity, was an elastic solid. The great 

 difficulty of the rigid atom theory was that it gave no explanation of 

 the apparent forces that hold atoms together. The elastic, solid ether 

 broke down when confronted with reflection and refraction. Pro- 

 fessor Hicks shadowed forth how the vortex-atom theory could be 

 applied to the chemical combinations of atoms. Similarly he 

 sketched a possible constitution of a spongy ether consisting of 

 applied vortex-systems. These are matters entirely for mathe- 

 matical treatment. But it seems that difiiculties like the old 

 theoretical action at a distance would vanisli under the new theories. 

 Light, electricity, and magnetic fields are in process of being reduced 

 to mathematical properties of the spongy ether ; and, most fascinating 

 suggestion of all. Professor Hicks indicated that gravity itself may be 

 turned from a law " observed as a fact " to a mathematical inference. 



The Synthesis of Organic Compounds. 



In his presidential address to the chemical section. Professor 

 R. Meldola discussed the fascinating subject of structural chemistry, 

 a subject which no doubt will receive its ultimate explanation on the 



