ELECTROSTATICS AND MAGNETISM. 307 



character of permanence and individuality which we attribute to a material 

 molecule, while at the same time it is capable, while retaining its essential 

 characteristics unchanged both in nature and value, of changing its form in an 

 infinite variety of ways, and of executing the vibrations which excite those rays 

 of the spectrum by which the species of the molecule may be discovered. It 

 would puzzle one of the old-fashioned little round hard molecules to execute 

 vibrations at all. There was no music in those spheres. 



But besides this application of hydrokinetics to this new conception of the 

 old atom, there is a vast field of high mathematical inquiry opened up by the 

 papers of Helmholtz and Thomson. It is to be hoped that the latter will soon 

 complete his papers on Vortex Motion and give them to the world. But why 

 does no one else work in the same field ? Has the multiplication of symbols 

 put a stop to the development of ideas ? 



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