120 THE LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE 



ultimate atom consisting of parts which are incapable 

 of separate existence, as Lucretius held) is raised to 

 a natural and necessary consequence of the new stand- 

 point." This is clearly an attempt to reconcile the two 

 antinomies of continuity and discontinuity, which are 

 usually attached to the names of Descartes and Lucre- 

 tius. This Sir J. Larmor tries to do by postulating 

 the existence of a true matter, which is a continuous 

 plenum and imperceptible to our senses, and relegat- 

 ing sensible matter to the role of a mere variation in 

 this otherwise changeless plenum making it an at- 

 tribute rather than an entity. If this definition denies 

 the infinite divisibility of matter, it apparently accepts 

 its indefinite divisibilty ; the atom, as a variation limited 

 only by our power of observation, must become smaller 

 with each advance in the refinement of our apparatus. 

 Such a plenum must remain a pure creation of the 

 imagination, and its existence is not determinable by 

 physical or experimental methods; it must therefore 

 be classed as a problem for the metaphysician. The 

 distinction between atoms continually diminishing in 

 size and the infinite, or at least indefinite, divisibility 

 of matter is here a question of words the definition of 

 what matter is. 



Few things have been brought out more clearly by 

 modern physicists than that, if we accept the doctrine 

 of the continuity and conservation of energy, either of 

 the two, matter or energy, may be considered as the 



