XI. 

 ON ATOMS.* 



"I sing of atoms." Rejected Addresses. 



DIALOGUE. Hermogenes et Hermione interloquuntur. 



E R M I O N E. What strange people those 

 Greeks were? I was reading this morning 

 about Democritus, "who first taught the 

 doctrine of atoms and a vacuum." I suppose 

 he must have meant that 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 

 I thought, "What are these atoms?" for if this be true, 

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



Hermogtnes. Yes. That is the natural conclusion: 

 unless there be something that does not need space 

 to exist in ; or unless there be things that are not mate- 



* From the Fortnightly Revinv. 



