AND ITS SELF-CONSEKVATION. 59 



inelastic and eternal, body named "atom" in the ancient 

 doctrine, physical science has first cautiously defined the 

 atom as the smallest division of matter arising in chemical 

 reactions, and has lately come to look with favor upon the 

 conception of the perfectly elastic and plastic vortex atom 

 as somehow existing in, as parts of, a, perfectly elastic fluid 

 pervading all space. 



That the atomic theory has been an instrument of 

 wondrous efficiency in the furtherance of physical science 

 there can be no question. And this can only be because 

 there is an essential truth involved in that theory. At the 

 same time, as leading scientists themselves clearly recog- 

 nize and explicitly affirm, this does not necessitate the 

 conclusion that the atom, as a necessarily permanent, 

 unalterable unit, is anything more than a mere product of 

 the "scientific imagination" something, indeed, not so 

 very far removed from things " metaphysical." 



So long as modern science held fast to the conception 

 of rigid atoms, it was under the necessity of also assuming 

 the "void," in so far as " pores" were indispensable to 

 the elasticity of a body. But this again led to another 

 assumption. As "action at a distance" is unthinkable, 

 according to Newton, and also according to anyone else 

 who has done any genuine thinking, and as atoms, never- 

 theless, act upon one another, though separated from 

 each other by the void "pores," it was assumed by 

 Clausius and others that each atom was surrounded by a 

 sphere of force which was elastic, but which also prevented 

 the enclosed atom from ever coming into contact with any 

 other atom. 



With the impact theory, on the other hand, the force- 

 sphere seemed no longer indispensable. Each atom, having 



