ON ATOMS.' 



**I sing of atoms." Rejected Addresses, 



Dialogue. Hermogenes et Hermione interloqnuntur, 



E R M I O N E. What strange people those 

 Greeks were? I was reading this morning 

 |j about Ijemocritus, " who first taught the 

 doctrine of atoms and a vacuum." I suppose 

 he must have meant that there is such a thing as utterly 

 empty space, and that here and there, scattered through 

 it, are things called atoms, like dust in the air. But then 

 I thought, "What are these atoms'?" for if this be true, 

 then, these are all the world, and the rest is nothing! 



Hei'inogaies. Yes. That is the natural conclusion : 

 unless there be something that does not need space 

 to exist in ; or unless there be thuigs that are not mate- 



* From the Forlnightly Review. 



