7 i 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of chemical science, of a true generalization of the phenomena of com- 

 bination in definite proportions, both of weight and volume, which is 

 independent of the atomic doctrine, and will serve to connect a num- 

 ber of concomitant facts for which this doctrine is utterly incompetent 

 to account. 



It is not infrequently asserted by the advocates of the atomic 

 theory that there is a number of other phenomena, in addition to 

 those of combination in definite proportions, which are strongly indica- 

 tive of the truth of the atomic theory. Among these phenomena are 

 isomerism, polymerism, and allotropy. But it is very doubtful whether 

 this theory is countenanced by the phenomena in question. The exist- 

 ence of different allotropic states, in an elementary body said to con- 

 sist of but one kind of atoms, is explicable by the atomic hypothesis 

 in no other way than by deducing these different states from diversi- 

 ties in the grouping of the different atoms. But this explanation ap- 

 plies to solids only, and fails in the cases of liquids and gases. The 

 same remark applies to isomerism and polymerism. 



From the foregoing considerations, I take it to be clear that the 

 atomic hypothesis mistakes many of the facts which it seeks to ex- 

 plain ; that it accounts imperfectly or not at all for a number of other 

 facts which are correctly apprehended ; and that there are cases in 

 which it appears to be in irreconcilable conflict with the data of expe- 

 rience. As a physical theory, it is barren and useless, inasmuch as it 

 lacks the first requisite of a true theory that of being a generaliza- 

 tion, a reduction of several facts to one ; it is essentially one of those 

 spurious figments of the brain, based upon an ever-increasing onultipli- 

 catio entium praeter necessitatem, which are characteristic of the pre- 

 scientific epochs of human intelligence, and against which the whole 

 spirit of modern science is an emphatic protest. Moreover, in its 

 logical and psychological aspect, as we shall hereafter see more 

 clearly, it is the clumsiest attempt ever made to transcend the sphere 

 of relations in which all objective reality, as well as all thought, 

 has its being, and to grasp the absolute " ens per sese, finitum, reale, 

 totum." 



I do not speak here of a number of other difficulties which emerge 

 upon a minute examination of the atomic hypothesis in its two prin- 

 cipal varieties, the atoms being regarded by some physicists as ex- 

 tended and figured masses, and by others as mere centres of force. 

 In the former case the assumption of physical indivisibility becomes 

 gratuitous, and that of mathematical indivisibility absurd ; while in 

 the latter case the whole basis of the relation between force and mass, 

 or rather force and inertia, without which the conception of either 

 term of the relation is impossible, is destroyed. Some of these diffi- 

 culties are frankly admitted by leading men of science for instance, 

 by Du Bois-Reymond, in the lecture above cited. Nevertheless, it is 

 asserted that the atomic, or at least molecular, constitution of matter 



