60 Dk. Macticab's Adaptation of the Philosophy of 



of bodies lie concealed, or those in which the heavenly bodies revolve. 

 We have supposed only homogeneous or similar atoms, or else masses 

 composed of them. We have supposed the second part of our grand 

 law, the function of mutual assimilation, to have previously accomplished 

 its end, to have succeeded in reducing all individualized objects to simi- 

 larity to one another, or to have found them thus in harmony with 

 itself from the first creation. 



It belongs to us now to consider that many conditions of existence 

 may obviously arise in which the setherial atoms or elements shall 

 enter into union with one another, and constitute molecules of various 

 kinds. It remains that we investigate under our law the forms and 

 structures of these molecules, the chemical functions which they must 

 fulfil, and the sensible properties which they must display. 



And here we have at once to predicate of all of them without excep- 

 tion, that for all of them the law of assimilation lays down this formula, 

 that the etherial elements of which the molecule is built up shall 

 always tend to assume positions which .are similar in reference to others 

 which correspond to them, or to some place and ultimately to some 

 point in the molecule. In a word, the law of assimilation in reference 

 to molecular construction is a law of symmetry, and might perhaps be 

 advantageously so named. 



Nor this only in these general terms. The idea of maximum assimila- 

 tion implies among symmetrical forms a maximum of symmetry towards 

 which all must culminate, and which each will attain so far as the con- 

 ditions of existence will permit. Nor is this culmination-form difficult 

 to be discovered. In a word, that form in which more than any other 

 all the parts or particles are assimilated to each other in their positions, 

 all being similarly placed in reference to each other, and to one point 

 (which is the centre) is the spherical superficies. Thus are we led to 

 the spherical shell or cell, as the culmination-form of the merely molecular 

 world. And this deduction is verified by observation in reference to 

 the ultimate structure of plants and animals, in which the cells being 

 insoluble wait to be seen ; and we have every reason to believe it to 

 hold very generally in reference to the inorganic kingdom also, most 

 bodies indicating their cellularitj- by being so very light compared with 

 what they might be, as is illustrated by plathium, gold, &c. As to 

 crystalline forms, they, being necessitated by the imperfection of their 

 constituent molecules to be highly angular, can only display many bevel- 

 ments and truncations, as they do, — that is, many nisus towards the 

 spherical. And as to the great number of prisms in inorganic nature, 

 and of filaments and cylinders in organic forms, their genesis is neces- 

 sitated by the linear currents from which it is next to impossible to 



