MODERN CONCEPTION OF MATTER 39 



" is clearly towards the reduction of the problem 

 of the world of the infinitely little, as it already has 

 reduced those of the infinitely great, to questions 

 of mechanics." 



Berthelot, the great French chemist, also desired 

 " ramener la chimie tout entiere .... aux meme 

 principes mecanique qui regissent deja les diverse 

 branches de la physique." 



Mendeleef, in his Principles of Chemistry^ asserts : 

 " In the present condition of science, either the 

 atomic or dynamical hypothesis is inevitably 

 obliged to admit the existence of an invisible, 

 imperceptible motion in matter, without which it 

 is impossible to understand either light, heat, or 

 gaseous pressure, or any of the mechanical, 

 physical, or chemical phenomena. The ancients 

 saw vital motion in animals only, but to us the 

 smallest particle of matter endowed with vis viva 

 or energy, in some degree or other, is incompre- 

 hensible without self-existent motion." 



The mechanical theory, as it grew, naturally left 

 little room for any psychical motive power, or for 

 any metaphysical conception of matter ; but yet 

 even the most advanced of the mechanic school 

 could not quite explain things on purely 

 mechanical principles, and were obliged betimes to 

 admit " Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore 

 miscet." Thus we find Haeckel writing, quite 



