ARE THE ELEMENTS TRAN SMUT ABLE? 51 



takes the stand that this unknown residuum is what he calls matter, 

 although any other name would be equally appropriate, it must be 

 acknowledged that his position is at present impregnable, and that 

 sort of matter exists. But it is nothing with which experimental 

 science can deal. A fair statement would appear to be: The electron 

 theory accounts for, or may be made to account for, all known facts. 

 Besides these there is a vast unknown within whose precincts matter 

 may or may not exist. 



Michael Faraday is acknowledged to have been one of the ablest of 

 experimenters and clearest of thinkers. His predominant character- 

 istic may be said to be the caution which he used in expressing views 

 reaching beyond the domain of experimental facts. His authority 

 rightly carries great weight, and it is therefore of particular signifi- 

 cance that he expressed himself more definitely upon these questions 

 than appears to be generally known. In an article published in 1814 10 

 he savs: 



j 



If we must assume at all, as indeed in a branch of knowledge like the 

 present we can hardly help it, then the safest course appears to be to assume 

 as little as possible, and in that respect the atoms of Boscovich appear to me 

 to have a great advantage over the more usual notion. His atoms, if I under- 

 stand aright, are mere centers of forces or powers, not particles of matter, in 

 which the powers themselves reside. If, in the ordinary view of atoms, we 

 call the particle of matter away from the powers a, and the system of powers 

 or forces in and around it m, then in Boseovich's theory a disappears, or is a 

 mere mathematical point, whilst in the usual notion it is a little unchangeable, 

 impenetrable piece of matter, and m is an atmosphere of force grouped around 

 it. . . . To my mind, therefore, the a or nucleus vanishes, and the substance 

 consists of the powers or m ; and indeed what notion can we form of the nucleus 

 independent of its powers? All our perception and knowledge of the atom, 

 and even our fancy, is limited to ideas of its powers: what thought remains 

 on which to hang the imagination of an a independent of the acknowledged 

 forces? A mind just entering on the subject may consider it difficult to 

 think of the powers of matter independent of a separate something to be called 

 the matter, but it is certainly far more difficult, and indeed impossible, to 

 think of or imagine that matter independent of the powers. Now the powers 

 we know and recognize in every phenomenon of the creation, the abstract matter 

 in none; why then assume the existence of that of which we are ignorant, 

 which we can not conceive, and for which there is no philosophical necessity? 



There is a striking analogy between the present condition of our 

 science and our discussions, and those prevailing in the latter half of 

 the eighteenth century when the phlogiston theory was almost univer- 

 sally accepted. We all now believe that heat is a mode of motion and 

 smile at the thought that there were those who considered heat as a 

 material. The materialistic theory is the phlogiston theory of our 

 day, and perhaps the time is not far distant when the same indulgent 

 smile will be provoked by the thought that there were those unwilling 

 to believe that matter is a mode of motion. 



10 ' Experimental Researches in Electrieitv,' Michael Faradav, Vol. 2, pp. 

 289-91. 



