DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER ATOMIC THEORY. 67 



are the problems the atomic theory brings before us, 

 and how bold and successful have been the steps of 

 science in this direction. The conception, perhaps the 

 proof, of the class of bodies termed Compound Kadicals 

 marks one of these steps, useful in progress if not 

 certain in sequel. It illustrates, indeed, as an example, 

 the present aspect of chemistry as regards organic 

 compounds a redundance of curious and well-deter- 

 mined facts, awaiting some certain principle of corre- 

 lation and nomenclature to give them that cohesion 

 which the ultimate ends of science require. Unity is 

 the true Euthanasia of the several chemical systems 

 now existing among us. 



Dismissing for the moment these more general 

 views, we come back upon the question, already pro- 

 pounded, as to the intimate nature of atoms, and the 

 properties which may be predicated as belonging to 

 them, irrespectively even of differences in the nature 

 of matter itself. 1 I have hitherto spoken chiefly 

 of their infinitesimal minuteness. Every speculation as 

 to their nature, every fact or theory regarding their 

 mutual relations, includes, and must include, this pos- 

 tulate. No explanation of the most common pheno- 

 mena is possible without it. Those intestine actions 

 and changes which take place within the most solid 

 bodies, inscrutable to any mode of observation, can be 

 effected only through infinitesimal minuteness of the 

 parts composing them. Necessity here becomes the 



1 Nowhere is the question of the necessary attributes of indivisible 

 atoms, as well as that of the infinite divisibility of space, reasoned out 

 more profoundly than in the writings of Pascal. 



F 2 



