ON ATOMS. 453 



rial substances ; or unless space itself be a tJiing: all 

 which is deep metaphysic, such as I am just now rather 

 inclined to eschew. But, dear Hermione, how am I 

 to answer such a host of questions as you seem to 

 have raised all in a breath % The Greeks ! Yes ; they 

 were a strange people so ingenious, so excursive, yet so 

 self-fettered ; so vague in their notions of things, yet so 

 rigidly definite in their forms of expressing them. Ex- 

 tremes met in them. In their philosophy they grovelled 

 in the dust of words and phrases, till, suddenly, out of 

 their utter confusion, a bound launched them into a new 

 sphere. There is a creature, a very humble and a very 

 troublesome one, which reminds me of the Greek mind. 

 You might know it for a good while as only a fidgety, 

 restless, and rather aggressive companion, wlien, behold, 

 hop ! and it is away far off", having realized at one 

 spring a new arena and a new experience. 



Hermione. Don't ! But a truce to the Greek mind 

 with its narrow pedantry and its boundless excursiveness. 

 The excursiveness Avas innate, the pedantry superinduced 

 the result of their perpetual rhetorical conflicts and 

 literary competitions. I have read the fiftli book of 

 EucHd and something of Aristotle ; so you need not talk 

 to me on that theme. Do tell me something about these 

 atoms. I declare it has quite excited me ; 'specially be- 

 cause it seems to have something to do with the atomic 

 theory of Dalton. 



Hennogcncs.^YWg'^vci?,, if you please. But the thing, 

 as you say, is as old as Democritus, or perhaps older; 

 for Leucippus, Democritus's master, is said to have 



