ATOMS IDEALLY REPRESENTED. 17 
the material world may be traced back, we stumble on 
insoluble contradictions. An atom contemplated as a 
minute, indivisible, inert mass, from which forces ema- 
nate, is a chimera. In the impossibility of compre- 
hending the nature of matter and force lies the only 
limit to the knowledge of natural science.” 
These propositions require some elucidation. Peyond 
the subdivision mechanically possible, we must think of 
substance or matter as consisting of particles ultimately 
indivisible. Of these atoms, according to the present 
standpoint of science, we are obliged to admit as many 
different species as are not chemically reducible to more 
simple elements. Now there is no doubt that these 
atoms are, in the actual sense of the word, imaginary, 
hypothetical quantities; and theory seems to indicate 
that all matter, in the most different phenomena in the 
material world, is based on a single species of atom. 
Every manual of physics or physiology will show 
that, in order to understand and calculate the properties 
of these atoms and their combinations into the ingre- 
dients of compound bodies, susceptible of chemical 
analysis, they are ideally represented under various 
material forms, spherical, cubical, &c.; furthermore, that 
in their combinations and co-operations as bodies, they 
must be contemplated as surrounded by a rarefied 
atmosphere of an universally diffused ether. But the 
atom itself, and therefore the nature of matter, is 
something incomprehensible, unattainable. In these 
atoms, forces are inherent, which display themselves in 
attractions and repulsions, and in motion in general. 
But the final cause of these motions, and how far these 
motions are, as it were, identical with the existence of 
