38 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



and many other elements show a similar polymorphous or, 

 as it is called, allotropic character. It was, however, when 

 chemists had to explain the different characters of quite 

 distinct chemical compounds, which yet had the same 

 chemical composition, that the importance of '' structure " 

 and constitution became most highly accentuated. Such 

 compounds are called isomers. So important is structure 

 to matter that without it one may safely say that 

 organic chemistry becomes unintelligible. The more 

 complex the composition of substances (as in organic 

 chemistry), the larger the number of permutations and 

 combinations that are possible in the relative positions and 

 placings of atoms or groups of atoms in the make-up of 

 matter, the more important does the phenomenon of 

 isomerism become, and the greater is the part played by 

 structure and configuration in the building up of matter. 

 The chemical formula is no longer sufficient, it is a mere 

 abstract notational shorthand which may be thoroughly 

 misleading in the absence of a diagrammatic representation 

 of the constitution or structure of the compound substance. 

 The crystal forms of solids illustrate not only the structural 

 character of chemical substances, but also the invariable way 

 in which the same substance follows the same pattern of 

 structure. To Chemistry structure, or the proper representa- 

 tion of relative positions of atoms or their groups in the 

 three dimensions of space, has become indispensable. And 

 the New Physics has now gone a step further and«shown that 

 this minute structure of the chemical atom and compound 

 is not static in space, but dynamic and intensely active in 

 that Space-Time continuum which we have already found 

 dominant in the relations of astronomical bodies and 

 events. Space-Time prevails at both ends of physical 

 infinity and everywhere between. 



To Chemistry the atom was a hard indivisible unit, the 

 constitution of which (if there was any) could not be 

 known; nor could it explain chemical affinity or why atoms 

 combined into molecules; nor could it explain the strange 

 serial character of the Periodic Law in reference to the 



