COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



when they begin to exist as aggregates down to 

 the time when they cease to exist as aggregates. 

 It is quite otherwise with the abstract-con- 

 crete sciences. By all these sciences, actually 

 existing aggregates are implicitly ignored ; " and 

 a property , or a connected set of properties, ex- 

 clusively occupies attention." It matters not 

 to Molar Physics " whether the moving mass 

 it considers is a planet or molecule, a dead stick 

 thrown into the river or the living dog that 

 leaps after it : in any case the curve described 

 by the moving mass conforms to the same 

 laws." So when Molecular Physics investigates 

 " the relation between the changing bulk of 

 matter and the changing quantity of molecular 

 motion it contains," constant account is taken 

 of connected sets of properties, but no account 

 whatever is taken of particular aggregates of 

 matter. The conclusions reached apply equally 

 to Chimborazo and to a tea-kettle, to the solidi- 

 fication of the earth's crust and to the cracking 

 of a pipe by frozen water. Similarly in Chem- 

 istry, while " ascertaining the affinities and 

 atomic equivalence of carbon, the chemist has 

 nothing to do with any aggregate. He deals 

 with carbon in the abstract, as something con- 

 sidered apart from quantity, form, or appear- 

 ance, or temporary state of combination ; and 

 conceives it as the possessor of powers or pro- 

 perties, whence the special phenomena he de- 

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