ON ATOMS. 



ON ATOMS. 



B Y S I R JOHN II r- R S C II E I, . 



"I sing of atomB." — Rejected Addresses. 



Dialogue. — TTemiogencs et Hcrmiouo, interloquuntur. 



Ilerynione. — What strange people those G reeks were! T was reading tliis morn- 

 ing about Dcmocritus,"who first tanglit the doctrine of atoms and a vacuum." I 

 suppose he must have meant tliat there is such a thing as utterly empty space, 

 and that here and there, scattered through it, are things called atoms, like dust 

 in the air. But then 1 thought, "What are these atoms?" for if this be true, 

 then, these are all the world, and the rest is — nothing ! 



Hirmogcnes. — Yes. That is the natural conclusion : unless there be some- 

 thing that does not need space to exist in; or unless there be things that are not 

 material substances ; or unless space itself be a thing : all which is deep meta 

 physic, such as I am just now rather inclined to eschew. But, dear Ilcrmione, 

 how am I to answer such a host of questions as you seem to have raised — all 

 in a breath ? The (j! reeks ! Yes, they were a strange people — so ingenious, so 

 e.xcursive, yet so self-fettered ; so vague in their notions of things, yet so 

 rigidly definite in their forms of expressing them. Extremes met in thrm. In 

 their pliiloso[iIiy they grovelled in the dust of words and phrases, till, suddenly, 

 out of their utter confusion, a bound launched them into a new sphere. There 

 18 a creature, a very humble and a very troublesome one, Avhich reminds me of 

 the Greek mind. You might know it for a good Avhile as only a fidgety, rest- 

 less, and rather aggressive companion, when, behold, hop ! and it is awa.y far 

 ofiF, having realized at one spring a new arena and a new experience. 



Ilcrmione. — Don't! But a truce to the Greek mind with its narrow pedantry 

 and its boundless excursiveness. 'I'he excursiveness was innate, the pedantry 

 superinduced — the result of their perpetual rhetorical conflicts and literary com- 

 petitions. I have read the fifth book of Euclid and something of Aristotle ; so 

 you need not talk to me on that theme. Do tell me something about these 

 atoms. I declare it has quite excited me, Specially because it seems to have 

 something to do with the atomic theory of Dalton. 



Ilermogenes. — Iliggins, if you please. But the thing, as you ^ay, is as old as 

 Democritus, or perhaps older ; for Leucippus, Dcmocritus's master, is said to 

 have taught it to him. Nay, there is an older authority still, in the personage 

 (as near to an abstraction as a traditional human being can be) Moschus (not he 

 of the Idyls.) Ikit the fact is that the notion of the atom — the indivi.nhle, 

 the thing that has place, being, and power — is an absolute necessity of the 

 human thinking mind, and is of all ages and nations. It underlies all our 

 notions of being, and starts up, jwr se, whenever we come to look closely at the 

 intimate objective nature of tilings, as much as space and time do in the subjec- 

 tive. You have dabbled in German metaphysics, and know the distinction I 

 refer to. 



Hermione. — You don't mean to say that we are nothing but atoms ? — Place ! 

 being ! power ! Why, that is I, it is you, it is all of us. Nay, nay. This is 

 going too fast. 



