HISTORY OP THE ATOMIC THEOET. 135 



written under the idea that the powers of nature worked 

 rather arbitrarily and capriciously ; how, is not distinctly 

 seen. When the mixture of pure elements is spoken of as 

 forming all bodies, there is a reason given clear enough for 

 the changes, and the chief blame attached to those who 

 believed in this is, that they did not obtain the amount 

 of each needed to form any one distinct substance. This 

 proves, as it appears to me, that they held their opinions 

 by a very slender tie. 



Boscovich, in his theory of natural philosophy, in 1759, 

 gave the fullest scientific expression of the unsubstantial theory 

 of matter, which may be called the dynamical. The book is 

 not common, and not to be found in this neighbourhood. I 

 shall take Dr. Daubeny's description : ** He supposes that 

 matter is made up of a number of unextended indivisible 

 points, which, however, never touch each other, owing to the 

 mutual repulsion subsisting between them, so soon as they 

 come within a certain distance of each other ; which repulsion 

 increasing gradually in proportion as they are made to 

 approach nearer and nearer, becomes at length too powerful 

 for any force to overcome." * 



In this theory we have again revived in another form the 

 idea that all matter comes from a non-material, or what we 

 may call a spiritual force, nor is it easy for us to conceive how 

 it could have any other origin. It is a revival of the doctrine 

 of the mind and of the soul being the origin of matter, or of 

 the early opinion that numbers were the true beginning, or in 

 other words, abstract forces. But we have to do with matter 

 when it is formed, not with its production ; and when these 

 unextended points have obtained existence, we are obliged to 

 reason on them as if real. One result, however, affects our 

 subject, that by this theory, matter may cease to be infinitely 



• An Introduction to the Atomic Theory. By Charles Daubeny, M.D., 

 F.R.8., &c. Second edition, Oxford, 1850. p. 34. 



