358 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



Though many of the views contained in this treatise 

 were really the same as those embraced by a large school 

 of Continental mathematicians till far into this century, 



whole treatise is really more of a 

 philosophical than a mathematical 

 or experimental investigation. A 

 large portion is taken up in de- 

 fending his view against possible 

 objections, and in showing how it 

 agrees with or differs from the 

 philosophies of Leibniz and New- 

 ton. Whilst this treatise represents 

 in general a view largely held by 

 Continental philosophers of nature, 

 it does not contain any new mathe- 

 matical methods such as the ' Prin- 

 cipia' contained before and La- 

 place's 'Mecanique celeste' later, nor 

 does it contribute any experiments 

 such as those works likewise con- 

 tained and suggested to others. 

 In fact, it is more a metaphysical 

 than an exact treatise, and as such 

 has exerted no lasting beneficial 

 influence on the progress of science. 

 " The eighteenth century made a 

 school of science for itself, in which 

 for the not unnatural dogma of the 

 earlier schoolmen, ' matter cannot 

 act where it is not,' was substituted 

 the most fantastic of paradoxes, 

 contact does not exist. Boscovich's 

 theory was the consummation of 

 the eighteenth- century school of 

 physical science. This strange idea 

 took deep root, and from it grew 

 up a barren tree, exhausting the 

 soil and overshadowing the whole 

 field of molecular investigation, 

 on which so much unavailing 

 labour was spent by the great 

 mathematicians of the early part 

 of our nineteenth century. If 

 Boscovich's theory no longer cum- 

 bers the ground, it is because one 

 true philosopher required more light 

 for tracing lines of electric force " 

 (Sir William Thomson's Lecture 

 before the Royal Institution, May 

 1860. Reprinted in ' Papers on 



Electrostatics and Magnetism,' 2nd 

 ed., 1884, p. 224). Nevertheless it 

 is extraordinary to note that Bos- 

 covich's theory was more popular 

 among British than among Con- 

 tinental physicists. In France the 

 book seems to have been little ap- 

 preciated, although Boscovich was 

 well known through his optical and 

 astronomical researches (see Montu- 

 cla's ' Histoire des Math^matiques,' 

 vol. iii. p. 490, vol. iv. p. 188) ; and 

 his diiferences with d'Alembert were 

 notorious. But French science was 

 then occupied less with metaphysi- 

 cal theories than with mathematical 

 analysis and experimental research. 

 In (Tcrmany the book remained 

 unknown, probablj' because Euler's 

 authority favoured an opposite 

 theory. In this country, however, 

 the theory is often referred to from 

 the time of Priestley (' History of 

 Optics') to Faraday ("On the Na- 

 ture of Matter," ' Phil. Mag.,' 1844, 

 vol. 24), and more recently Thom- 

 son (Lord Kelvin). The last has 

 probably more than any other living 

 writer of similar eminence referred 

 to Boscovich, whose theory he con- 

 siders suggestive, and we are in- 

 debted to him for the first serious 

 attempt to establish by actual cal- 

 culation the real capabilities of the 

 Boscovich atoms in explaining the 

 properties of chemical molecules, 

 their stability and degree of satur- 

 ation (see the Report of the 

 British Association at Liverpool, 

 1896). In Scotland Boscovich's 

 theory was fully discussed in a 

 posthumous article on " Corpuscular 

 Forces " by John Robison, Professor 

 of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh, 

 and published by Brewster in the 

 1st volume of Robison's 'System of 

 Mechanical Philosophy' (Edinburgh, 



