The Higher Usefulness of Science 69 



quantitative treatment of magnets.* 



This conception of magnetism as a fundamentally 

 interrelational phenomenon between molecules and 

 masses of molecules, is exhibited with special clearness 

 by the magnetic phenomena of various alloys. One 

 of these that seems to have attracted unusual attention 

 among physicists is known as Heusler's alloy. This, 

 as already indicated, is composed of copper, aluminum 

 and manganese. It is said to be the most strongly 

 ferromagnetic of all known alloys. The significance 

 of this for the point we are here making is very obvious 

 when it is remembered that each of the metals, copper, 

 aluminum and manganese, taken by itself, is always re- 

 garded as non-magnetic. Note how this magnetic alloy 

 illustrates the general proposition that some attributes 

 of the parts of a natural whole, are determined by the 

 whole itself. If it be really true, as authorities seem 

 to agree, that copper, aluminum, and manganese are, 

 taken separately, non-magnetic, we can not even say 

 that they are proved by the magnetic alloy to be poten- 

 tially magnetic in a full sense. All that is proved is 

 that each is potentially able to cooperate with the 

 others in producing the magnetism in the alloy. Heus- 

 ler's discovery that this alloy is magnetic was the dis- 

 covery of a hitherto unknown attribute of copper, 



* It has recently been suggested that the ultimate magnetic par- 

 ticle is not the molecule but the atom or something within it. But 

 there is nothing in the revised hypothesis that would affect the 

 reasoning here presented. 



