HISTORY OF THE ATOMIC THEORY. 291 



Those theories, which now appear only as histories, are 

 not of necessity all extinct ; for some of them a resurrection 

 day will in all probability arrive, when their forms will be 

 beautified and their powers exalted. It may be, too, that 

 in the confusion of transition or the diflBculties of progress, 

 various inferior appearances may be looked on as the final 

 triumph, and be hailed by the hasty and the short-sighted, 

 although seen by the clearer judgment to be mere phantoms 

 by the way, specimens of the mystic theory. The time may 

 come when the old theory of the prima materia^ which has 

 deluded so many, may have a higher existence, and alchemy 

 again become the " true philosophy." Over this, too, the 

 dynamical theory may rise, grasping them all, and by giving 

 clearer ideas of force, thrust into an inferior position both 

 quantity and matter, and show us, with greater certainty, 

 the true position of abstract power and of mind. 



