AS APPLIED TO MAN, 363 
The Nature of Matter. 
It has been long seen by the best thinkers on the 
subject, that atoms,—considered as minute solid bodies 
from which emanate the attractive and repulsive forces 
which give what we term matter its properties,—could _ 
serve no purpose whatever ; since it is universally - 
admitted that the supposed atoms never touch each 
other, and it cannot be conceived that these homo- 
geneous, indivisible, solid units, are themselves the 
ultimate cause of the forces that emanate from their 
centres. As, therefore, none of the properties of matter 
can be due to the atoms themselves, but only to the 
forces which emanate from the points in space indi- 
cated by the atomic centres, it is logical continually 
to diminish their size till they vanish, leaving only 
localized centres of force to represent them. Of the 
‘various attempts that have been made to show how 
_ the properties of matter may be due to such modified 
atoms (considered as mere centres of force), the most 
successful, because the simplest and the most logical, is 
that of Mr. Bayma, who, in his “Molecular Mechanics,” 
has demonstrated how, from the simple assumption of 
such centres having attractive and repulsive forces 
(both varying according to the same law of the in- . 
verse squares as gravitation), and by grouping them in ° 
’ symmetrical figures, consisting of a repulsive centre, an 
attractive nucleus, and one or more repulsive envelopes, 
we may explain all the general properties of matter ; 
_ and, by more and more complex arrangements, even 
