LUCRETIUS AND THE ATOMIC THEORY 201 



not the gross things known by that name, but essences of some 

 kind. Leibnitz does not think his bubbles existed from all 

 eternity, but gives the strangest account of their formation in 

 his i Theoria motus concreti.' He sets the sun and earth spin- 

 ning in the midst of a universal ether. Molecules of the sun's 

 mass, too, had a special motion of their own, which impelled 

 some thing or some action, we are not sure which, along the 

 ether, producing light; this light striking the earthy, airy, 

 watery globe of the earth, sets the whole in fermentation ; the 

 dense parts formed in hollow bubbles containing ether ; these 

 spun round and so acquired consistency. (This idea of giving 

 consistency by motion, taken by Leibnitz from Hobbes, was in 

 opposition to Descartes, who derived consistency from rest.) 

 Leibnitz explains his meaning by a metaphor : In a glass- 

 blower's, glasses of a simple artificial form result from the 

 straight motion of breath, combined with the circular motion 

 of fire, and so ' bullae ' were produced from the straight motion 

 of light and the circular motion of the earth. These bubbles 

 are the seeds of things Lucretins's own phrase the origin 

 of various kinds of things, the receptacles of ether, the basis of 

 bodies, the cause of the force we admire in motions. 



The bubbles varied in ' contents through density ; ' in ' con- 

 tents through size ; ' in emptiness, or perfect fulness, and in 

 more or less emptiness and fulness. He explains how bubbles 

 for the animal, vegetable, and mineral reigns, of sterile or pro- 

 ductive qualities ; salt, sulphurous, mercurial bubbles, &c. &c., 

 are formed, and gives the special combination of qualities wanted 

 for each. Thus, one of his bubbles is empty-extraordinary- 

 alkaline-colourable-feminine, another full-extraordinary-acid- 

 coloured-masculine these two kinds of seeds differ in their 

 way of acting. This seems like idiocy to persons not familiar 

 with the scholastic habit of bracketing off qualities and cate- 

 gories, distinguishing and dividing things into a kind of verbal 

 Chinese pattern. We have not made out the constitution of 

 Leibnitz's ether, or his earthy, watery, airy globe, out of which 

 he blew his bubbles, but we have found enough to show a very 

 unfavourable contrast with Lucretius, even omitting monads, 

 pre-established harmony, and many other interesting ideas, pro- 

 posed by the man who claimed to have run a race with Newton 



