2 LarmoR, Physical Aspect of the Atomic Theo7y. 



carried through to reconstruct the phenomena of physics 

 and physiology on a basis of mutual connexion — thereby 

 starting afresh the aspiration which is fundamental to all 

 scientific instinct, the effort to push to the utmost the 

 unravelling of rational foundations of the scheme of things 

 in which we subsist. And, whereas in Descartes' time 

 there was little to go upon, except the imagination applied 

 to the common facts of experience, now there are the vast 

 and growing accumulations of ascertained experimental 

 knowledge in the various Sciences, affording a most 

 urgent stimulus towards the continued cultivation and 

 improvement of general syntheses ; these in turn react as 

 the ever present incitement to the further pursuit of 

 scientific experiment into regions economically devoid 

 of profit. 



The Cartesian system of celestial vortexes had been 

 absorbed into common modes of thought, as a natural 

 and intelligible feature in the cosmogony, when the 

 precise observations of Kepler and the deductions of 

 Newton came to replace this obvious mode of representa- 

 tion by new but exact principles whose foundations were 

 entirely concealed from view. It is not easy for us now to 

 imagine how strange must have been the idea that the 

 planets were drawn inward to the Sun by a direct pull 

 across space, depending on nothing but their distance 

 apart, — by a force which was postulated to act quite 

 irrespective of whatever obstacles might intervene between 

 them. To prepare for the unimpeded operation of direct 

 forces across space such as Newtonian gravitation, 

 the aether of Descartes — resisting medium so-called in 

 this connexion — which had to carry round the planets in 

 its vortex, must be rigorously abolished : and space 

 appears again as empty. Even the intellect of Huygens — 

 whose vast range of achievements has been largely 



