io8 From Matter to Man. 



of archetypes we cannot go, unless the elements are 

 reduced in number, for, as atoms are eternal, so also 

 must their forms be everlasting. 



Perhaps, however, we are too precipitate. The 

 atoms of two different elements may be otherwise 

 differentiated, for we find unlike substances, similar 

 in form, presenting striated or pitted surfaces. Hence, 

 by these means, vast distinctions could be effected in 

 the appearance of substances without involving the 

 additional dissimilarity of geometric form. How far 

 this masonic differentiation prevails among crystals, 

 observation and experiment can alone determine. 

 The general deduction, however, cannot be vitiated 

 that each elementary atom differs in some way, either 

 structurally or pictorially, from every other atom. 



Similar reasoning is applicable to compound as to 

 elementary substance ; hence, when a compound sub- 

 stance exhibits a particular crystalline form, the 

 smallest particle of that substance should also mani- 

 fest the same form. But the smallest particle of a 

 compound substance is not an atom, but a molecule ; 

 hence the crystal represents only the shape of the 

 molecule. The molecule, however, is built up of 

 atoms, and as every molecule of every different sub- 

 stance necessarily contains, if not different groups of 

 elementary atoms, at least different proportions of 

 those groups, the molecules of different substances 

 should also be different in form. This is quite pos- 

 sible, for a combination of considerably fewer than 

 seventy archetypes could produce designs innumer- 



