456 Don Enrique Serrano y Fatigati on Points 



Consider, for example, the case of physics. Can we un- 

 equivocally say that it clearly knows its own object ? Does it 

 hold within exact and rigorous limits its own definition (which 

 occurs in every treatise) as " the science which studies the 

 phenomena of bodies whose intimate composition remains un- 

 changed " ? The relations of composition to other properties 

 are, indeed, but imperfectly known ; and even the light of the 

 undulatory theory becomes fainter when we arrive at the focus 

 of the phenomena to be interpreted. What, again, of the 

 sether — that subtle substance which, in an immense vacuum, 

 transmits unaltered from point to point the disturbances of its 

 infinite material ? In a small group of memoirs, such as 

 those of Pliicker on Diamagnetism (further developed by 

 Edlund), the laws regulating the equilibrium of fluids have 

 indeed been somewhat applied to it; but our conception of its 

 nature remains most incomplete. Yet undulations are real, 

 and the interferences of undulations are real. They constitute 

 the ascertained basis of the mechanical theory of heat — a 

 theory so well founded and fruitful, that it ought to induce us 

 to verify our beliefs in other scientific departments. 



The common practice of formally representing to our imagi- 

 nation as atoms the individual elements of bodies, without 

 inquiring whether the proceeding is false or sound, has led to a 

 vague conception of mathematical points, or centres of force, 

 whose activity is only virtual. This has involved a clear loss 

 of predictive power. Such a conception, also, pulverizes 

 natural unity in order to reconstitute it afterwards. Nor does 

 it reconstitute a harmonious unity, such as an extraneous and 

 dissevered net, with knots corresponding to each material 

 atom. That the atomic doctrine gives a very obscure presen- 

 tation of subjects of the greatest importance, will not be denied 

 by its most passionate defenders ; that it delivers no rational 

 or exact account of actions at a distance, is also quite evident ; 

 that the laws of definite and multiple proportions, in which the 

 doctrine has in a manner cemented itself, may be interpreted 

 otherwise, is an affirmation of which any one may most easily 

 convince himself. Now, from the darkness which surrounds 

 the problem of the constitution of matter, we can only emerge 

 by having recourse to first principles. And since in the im- 

 penetrable and extensible atom we seem to be almost the 

 victims of a fresh phlogiston, and both nomenclature and hy- 

 pothesis have become infiltrated with atomism, the dismissal 

 of the atomic theory must imperatively be demanded. Doubt- 

 less the more it advances, the more it is beset with innumerable 

 difficulties ; and at each stage of the process who does not 

 ask for something better than those micro-microscopic stellar 



