SIR B. C. BEODIE ON THE CALCULrS OF CHEMICAL OPERATIONS. 859 



that the elements of this gi-oup are to be considered as combinations of elements of the 

 two previous forms respectively. It is further found, as a matter of experience, that 

 the unit of every chemical substance may be regarded as a combination of the same 

 simple weights, a, |, fl, ;^, s;, v, . . . ., which are the component weights of the units of 

 the elements. Now from the fundamental equation xy=^x-\-y, 



aV=2a+4<p, 



whence we unavoidably have suggested to us as the ultimate origin of our actual system 

 of combinations, and as affording an adequate and probable (doubtless we cannot say the 

 only possible or conceivable) explanation of the peculiar phenomena there presented to 

 us, a group of elements |, 6, %, (i, tu,v, ^, . . . . of the densities indicated by these symbols, 

 and which, though now revealed to us through the numerical properties of chemical 

 equations only as " implicit and dependent existences," we cannot but surmise may some 

 day become, or may in the past have been, "isolated and independent existences." 

 Examples of these simple monad forms of material being are preserved to us in such 

 elements as hydrogen and mercury, which appear in the chemical system, as records 

 suggestive of a state of things different from that which actually prevails, but which has 

 passed away, and which we are unable to restore. 



Such a hypothesis is not precluded to us, but nevertheless we are not to imagine that 

 it is a necessary inference from the facts. So far as the principles or conclusions of this 

 method are concerned, the " simple weights " |, 6, ;^, /3, », f, ip, . . . may be treated purely 

 as " ideal" existences created and called into being to satisfy the demands of the intellect, 

 to enable us to reason and to think in reference to chemical plienomena, but destined to 

 vanish from the scene when their purpose has been served ; and the existence of which 

 as external realities we neither assume nor deny. 



