THE SPACE RELATIONS OF ATOMS. 



^HE theory that matter is composed of atoms is not 

 X older than the theory that the nature of the matter 

 depends on the arrangement of the atoms. Both these 

 doctrines are said to have originated together about twenty- 

 three centuries ago ; and their association was inevitable 

 since the ancient atomic theories assumed the substance of 

 all atoms to be alike ; that matter is not all alike could 

 therefore be explained only by supposing the atoms to differ 

 in their space relations. For two thousand years these 

 notions endured. They were elaborated, but essentially 

 unchanged. " God made the atoms," says Sir Isaac 

 Newton, "of such sizes and figures, and with such other 

 properties, and in such proportion to space, as most con- 

 duced to the end for which He formed them." 



Later Swedenborg enters into elaborate calculations 

 concerning the sizes, shapes, and proportion to space. He 

 holds the atom to be a geometrical point, and to be the 

 same for all matter. And he sets forth a sort of "genesis 

 of the elements," in which the evolution of six kinds of par- 

 ticles is traced from the geometrical point, through the smaller 

 particles of gravitation, magnetism, and ether, to the larger 

 forms constituting air, aqueous vapour and water. All the 

 particles are hollow spheres, and all are of the same nature; 

 the difference is only in size. The properties of bodies 

 depend entirely on the size and arrangement of their com- 

 ponent spheres. In water the arrangement is simplest. 

 The centres of four large spheres form a square, and 

 eight of them make a cube. This is confirmed by forty- 

 seven observations and experiments on water. Further, 

 each of the large spheres of water is surrounded by the 

 next smaller spheres, these again by the next smaller, and 

 so on throuoh the series of six down to the mathematical 

 point. 



From this arrangement the arrangement of other bodies 

 is deduced. The shape of the particles of salt, for example, 

 follows from the simple fact that at the bottom of the sea 



