1 66 MATTER, MOLECULES, AND ATOMS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



MATTER. 



THE AXIAL AND ORBITAL FORCE OF THE REVOLVING 



PLANETS, TRANSMITTED BY THE UNIVERSAL ETHER, 



IS MODIFIED BY THE MECHANISMS OF SIXTY-SIX 



KINDS OF ELEMENTARY MOLECULES. 



l^EWTON defines matter to be "An aggrega- 

 tion of the smallest parts, which are extended, 

 and strongly connected together by an unknown 

 power, . . . which it is the business of experimental 

 philosophy to find out." , " 



Professor Faraday describes a molecule as 

 " something material, having a specific volume ; 

 upon which were impressed, at the creation, certain 

 powers, that have given to it from that time to the 

 present the capability of constituting the different 

 kinds of substances, whose properties we discover 

 when a sufficient number of atoms are combined 

 together into molecular groups. . . . The powers 

 of matter we know and recognize in every phe- 

 nomenon of creation ; the absolute matter in 

 none." ] Buscovich defines molecules to be " cen- 

 tres of forces." 



Molecules are aggregations of atoms into little 

 masses, as this term literally signifies. 



1 London and Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1844. 



