30 OF THE ATOMIC THEORY. 



Leibnitz sense of smelling. Leibnitz, on the other hand, 



considered . . . . 



them as adopted the opinion, that the ultimate elements 

 of bodies are atoms ; and, to obviate the mathe- 

 matical objections of those who had embraced 

 the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter, 

 he considered these atoms as unextended. But 

 numerous absurd consequences were still deduci- 

 ble from this opinion of Leibnitz, which were 

 finally obviated by Boscovich ; who considered 

 the ultimate elements of bodies to be composed 

 of unextended atoms ; but demonstrated, in a 

 most ingenious manner, from the law of conti- 

 nuity, that mutual contact between these atoms, 

 or the bodies which they constitute, is impossi- 



His view ble. According to the theory of Boscovich, the 



improved . 



iiy BOSCO. latest and most complete and ingenious which 

 has been hitherto offered to the public, bodies 

 are composed of unextended atoms, indivisible 

 and homogeneous, possessing forces, which al- 

 ternate from repulsive to attractive, according to 

 the distance. This theory has been viewed in a 

 favourable light by some of the most eminent 

 philosophers who have appeared since the The- 

 oria Naturalis of that mathematician was pub- 

 lished. The opinion, that the ultimate principles 

 of bodies are atoms which are incapable of far- 

 ther division, seems, chiefly in consequence of 

 the authority of Boscovich, to have become the 

 prevailing opinion among the philosophers of the 

 present time. 



