SPECULATIONS ON THE NATURE OF MATTER. 791 



have been introduced. Inertia, so far as I am aware, has always been 

 accepted as an inscrutable fact, or ignored. 



An entity with four unexplained properties is regarded as still a 

 long way from satisfactory simplicity. But a more important con- 

 sideration is that the entity is always found associated with its fel- 

 low or fellows in a dependent and artificial way (when identified at 

 all), which indicates an advance from primitive independence and sim- 

 plicity. The complexity of the simplest atom we know of has already 

 been referred to. The resemblance of the atoms to manufactured 

 articles was pointed out by Sir John Herschel ; and not only that, but 

 they resemble articles made in quantities by machinery, all exactly 

 alike, like Waltham watches or Springfield guns. And the fact that 

 any recognizable atom, like that of hydrogen, for instance, is always 

 exactly the same thing, whether derived from the ocean or the coal- 

 measures, or from the occluded gas of a meteorite, or inspected in the 

 sun and stars, as pointed out by Maxwell (" Encyclopedia Britannica," 

 ninth edition, article " Atom "), would seem to indicate that it must 

 be the result of an undeviating process, and in its ultimate deriva- 

 tion made up of finally discrete entities, and not out of continuous 

 substance, whatever that may mean. The fact, too, of its occurrence 

 at such wide points of distribution, indicates the unity of the present 

 scheme of evolution, as well as the great antiquity of its origin, and 

 its persistency of type. 



We have at present no clew to the evolutionary history of the 

 atom. The atom I distinguish both from the ultimate particle without 

 parts, and from the complex derivative molecule of the chemical ele- 

 ments, such as all those we know of are. In fact, these must also be 

 distinguished from the still differently organized compound molecule 

 of the chemical combinations, which can be taken apart, and the enor- 

 mously complicated system of the organic molecule, as of oil or albu- 

 men, which, if a body so simple as iron contains more than seven 

 hundred couples, must contain rotary elements which can only be 

 numbered by millions. 



The atom, or elementary couple, is conceived as having dimension, 

 figure, and polarity, and also perfect elasticity, by reason of its har- 

 monic vibration. We have to seek an origin for it if we are at all 

 impressed with its artificial and evolved character. Its artificiality 

 lies in its rotary motion ; such motion being due to and maintainable 

 only by a composition of forces. 



The weight and ponderosity of matter have proved a stumbling- 

 block to the conceptions of the later philosophers especially after 

 Newton had generalized them as attraction and inertia far more than 

 the equally unexplainable property of resistance, though why, it is 

 difficult to say. Lucretius found no such difficulty with the concep- 

 tion of weight, for his corpuscles all naturally tended " downward," 

 so uncosmical were his ideas. Le Sage revived and modified the by- 



