Does Matter Exist ? 



their knowledge of matter that physicists have 

 been led to doubt its reality. 



Are these things certain? One must beware 

 of believing it. To-morrow perhaps the wind 

 of a new theory may sweep away all these 

 hypotheses. We are upon scientific ground of 

 too recent date for it to be possible to build solid 

 structures. But it is curious to remark that all 

 these modern theories bring us back to the ideas 

 of Helmholtz, one of the greatest geniuses of the 

 nineteenth century. Helmholtz was a smoker, 

 but great men profit even by their faults. The 

 smoke rings which sometimes left the bowl of 

 his pipe and rose slowly in the air revolving on 

 themselves set him thinking. The idea struck 

 him that atoms might perhaps be similar vortices 

 formed within the ether and consisting of ether. 

 He subjected the problem to analysis, and found 

 that in a medium free from viscosity such 

 vortices should persist indefinitely. This is 

 exactly one of the characteristics of the atoms 

 or of the corpuscle. There is nothing absurd 

 in imagining that the two possible directions of 

 rotation of the vortex on itself correspond to the 

 positive and negative electric charges which 



