JACOB BERZELIUS 195 



and placing them together, with the suffix giving the number 

 of atoms, to show the molecular formula. Dalton showed 

 atoms as small circles with distinctive symbols written in 

 them; Berzelius' symbolism gradually became more suit- 

 able, since the number of elements ascertained to exist in- 

 creased, whereas for a long time nothing whatever could be 

 ascertained concerning the grouping in space of atoms in 

 molecules, so that a scientist desirous of adhering to truth, 

 such as Berzelius, felt obliged to avoid for preference the 

 suggestion of grouping in molecular formulae. 



Berzelius received the highest recognition and dis- 

 tinction. He married in 1835. He lived to the age of 

 sixty-nine. Both Davy and Berzelius - the first somewhat 

 earlier^ - made use of their experiments on the chemical 

 effects of the electric current to draw conclusions concerning 

 the nature of the atoms; they recognised that the atoms either 

 contain electric charges from the beginning (Berzelius), or 

 must be capable of communicating them to one another by 

 contact, either singly in the molecule, or in large masses in 

 the case of the plates of the Voltaic battery (Davy). This was 

 the first time that properties of the atom appeared to be 

 capable of deduction on the basis of well-founded experience, 

 and these properties were electrical in nature. A further 

 eighty years were to pass until - by the study of Hittorf 's 

 cathode rays - new experience of an essential description was 

 again obtained, but this then only resulted in the addition 

 of more definite matter of the same kind to the original con- 

 clusions, and removed all doubt. Thus the first discovery 

 by Davy and Berzelius that electric forces must be ascribed 

 to the atom, indeed, that atoms are held together in the mole- 

 cule by electric forces -in other words, that the chemical 

 forces are electric forces - remained all these years a good 

 indication for research, only forgotten at times to the 



1 See Sir E. Thorpe's History of Chemistry, London, 1909, vol. i, 

 p. 114. 



