AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 63 



G. H. Lewes's form of expression, te Matter is the passive 

 aspect of existence/'* But we have already seen that force 

 is,, in its very nature, at once active and passive. So that 

 the conception of a matter apart from force only darkens 

 the stream of thought with a sediment having no corre- 

 sponding reality in nature. 



The theory of Clausius, already referred to, has a germ 

 of suggestiveness which may be put to use along with the 

 theory of Boscovich. In the theory of the former, the 

 material atom is surrounded by a sphere of force. In the 

 theory of the latter, the atom or ultimate element of mat- 

 ter is a mathematical point, from which radiate out to a 

 greater or less distance, both attraction and repulsion. 



In either case the force-sphere, as limited, must still 

 present the difficulty of "action at a distance. " It is 

 also evident that in the theory of Clausius the atom itself 

 plays absolutely no part whatever. All that is done is 

 done by the force-sphere surrounding the atoms. What- 

 ever action is directed toward an atom is already received 

 and reacted upon by the sphere of force in which the 

 neither active nor passive atom is imprisoned in blissful 

 unconsciousness, it may be presumed to all eternity. 



It seems evident, then, that any supposed matter as 

 apart from force, is the veriest fiction; that, in short, the 

 " atom," as generally figured, is simply an unscientific 

 creation of the insufficiently restrained phantasy; that is, 

 of the -wwscientific imagination. In other words, it is 

 simply the re-appearance, under a changed and scarcely 

 improved form, of the mysterious, unapproachable, met- 

 aphysical noumenon of the Middle Age modes of thought, 

 from which it might reasonably be supposed that the 



* " Problems of Life and Mind" (Boston Ed.), II., 302. 



