SCIENTIFIC FAITH ONCE MORE 



ent orders in which the atoms are arranged in the 

 molecule, and the molecules in the mass. If the 

 atoms of carbon or oxygen or hydrogen are each as 

 unique and individual as men and women are, one 

 can see that the order in which they join hands or 

 select their partners may be fraught with important 

 consequences. Or if the atoms are vibrating each 

 with a different degree of energy, or carry different 

 charges of electricity, then one can see that the dif- 

 ferent orders in which they stand to each other would 

 be significant. But no mechanical image, nor the 

 action and interaction of ponderable bodies in time 

 and space, afford us a key to chemical combination. 

 How can we figure to ourselves any sort of spatial 

 disposition of the ultimate particles of the invisible 

 gases of oxygen and hydrogen that shall result in a 

 product so unlike either as water? How impossible 

 it all is in the light of our experience with visible 

 bodies! Each atom or electron seems to get inside 

 the other. But how can an indivisible particle of 

 matter have either an inside or an outside, or place, 

 or weight, or any other property that we ascribe to 

 the bodies that we see and feel? What a world of 

 the imagination it all is! It introduces us to some of 

 the unthinkable truths of science truths beyond 

 our power to grasp, yet which experimental science 

 verifies. It is unthinkable that matter and motion 

 can exist without friction; that two bodies can occu- 

 py the same space at the same time; that a particle 

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