and the Nature of Matter. 141 



a little unchangeable, impenetrable piece of matter, and m is 

 an atmosphere of force grouped around it. 



In many of the hypothetical uses made of atoms, as in cry- 

 stallography, chemistry, magnetism, &c, this difference in the 

 assumption makes little or no alteration in the results, but in 

 other cases, as of electric conduction, the nature of light, the 

 manner in which bodies combine to produce compounds, the 

 effects of forces, as heat or electricity, upon matter, the dif- 

 ference will be very great. 



Thus, referring back to potassium, in which as a metal the 

 atoms must, as we have seen, be, according to the usual view, 

 very far apart from each other, how can we for a moment 

 imagine that its conducting property belongs to it, any other- 

 wise than as a consequence of the properties of the space, or 

 as I have called it above, the ml so also its other properties 

 in regard to light or magnetism, or solidity, or hardness, or 

 specific gravity, must belong to it, in consequence of the pro- 

 perties or forces of the m, not those of the a, which, without 

 the forces, is conceived of as having no powers. But then surely 

 the m is the matter of the potassium, for where is there the least 

 ground (except in a gratuitous assumption) for imagining a 

 difference in kind between the nature of that space midway 

 between the centres of two contiguous atoms and any other 

 spot between these centres? a difference in degree, or even in 

 the nature of the power consistent with the law of continuity, 

 I can admit, but the difference between a supposed little hard 

 particle and the powers around it I cannot imagine. 



To my mind, therefore, the a or nucleus vanishes, and the 

 substance consists of the powers or m; and indeed what no- 

 tion can we form of the nucleus independent of its powers? 

 all our perception and knowledge of the atom, and even our 

 fancy, is limited to ideas of its powers: what thought remains 

 on which to hang the imagination of an a independent of the 

 acknowledged forces? A mind just entering on the subject 

 may consider it difficult to think of the powers of matter in- 

 dependent of a separate something to be called the matter, but 

 it is certainly far more difficult, and indeed impossible, to think 

 of or imagine that matter independent of the powers. Now 

 the powers we know and recognize in every phaenomena of the 

 creation, the abstract matter in none ; why then assume the 

 existence of that of which we are ignorant, which we cannot 

 conceive, and for which there is no philosophical necessity ? 



Before concluding these speculations I will refer to a few 

 of the important differences between the assumption of atoms 

 consisting merely of centres of force, like those of Boscovich, 

 and that other assumption of molecules of something specially 

 material, having powers attached in and around them. 



