22 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 65 



The effect just described is possibly sufficient in itself to determine 

 the properties of an atom, although it would admittedly be more 

 satisfactory to find a mechanism that could hold for a static condition 

 of the atom also. If it should be found that the static separation is 

 an essential idea, and that the elasticity of the positive sphere does 

 not secure it, it would be better, I think, to make further and more 

 arbitrary assumptions about the magneton or the positive part of the 

 atom than to fall back upon the idea of a single large group of 

 magnetons, because of the very much better picture of the facts that 

 the grouping into eights affords us. One such set of assumptions 

 has been suggested to me by Dr. D. L. Webster : the magneton might 

 be supposed to exert magnetic forces that are greater than the 

 electric forces at moderately short distances (as if v were greater 

 than c) ; this would secure separation into groups, and the coales- 

 cence of such magnetons could be prevented by the assumption of a 

 new repulsive force which followed an " inverse cube " law up to 

 very short distances. 



It must be remembered, of course, that a static condition of the 

 atom cannot occur except at the absolute zero of temperature : fur- 

 thermore, even if the distribution into groups of eight within an 

 atom were statically stable, the reactivity of the valence magnetons 

 could not be developed except under conditions of inter- and intra- 

 atomic disturbance. On the other hand, if the grouping into eights 

 owes its very existence to these disturbances, it is hard to see how 

 the valence magnetons could retain, at any temperature, that marked 

 individuality which is shown in the permanence of structure in 

 organic molecules, and yet more in the stability of optical isomers — 

 and which, indeed, was one of the original reasons for introducing 

 the idea of this magneton (§§i, 3). However, we should expect, 

 from the immediate point of view, to find just that relative stability 

 of the " organic " compounds of Carbon, Silicon, and Titanium which 

 is actually observed, because an increase in the number of groups of 

 eight within the vibrating atom would more and more swamp the 

 effect of the valence magnetons (in forming the "positive bond,"' at 

 all events : see §9). 



Without trying to settle this matter any more completely here, 

 I will, for what follows, eke out the argument by the assumption 

 that the separation into groups of eight actually can take place under 

 Static conditions — without, however, abandoning the dynamical 

 conception of vibration and possibility of configurational changes 

 within the atom, which is, as will be seen, the key-note of the treat- 

 ment in this paper. 





