﻿Dr. Guyot on the Forms and Forces of Matter, 409 



ders of the Presse Scientifique, by undertaking to entertain all 

 new scientific theories without denying and without rejecting 

 them a priori, perform a function of the highest importance. 

 Official science is conservative. The readers of the Presse place 

 themselves at the head of scientific progress. 



On Matter and its Forms. 



Before considering matter in the exercise of its forces (that is, 

 of its movements), it is well to make, so to say, an inventory of 

 the principal forms under which it presents itself directly to 

 our senses, or indirectly to our sense of induction. 



The form of matter which falls the first under our senses 

 is that of bodies considered isolated. Bodies affect three forms, 

 the solid, liquid, and gaseous. In nature we usually see solids 

 grouped together, liquids united in considerable expanses, and 

 gases forming immense zones. In these collective forms the 

 solids constitute solid media, liquids liquid media, and gases 

 gaseous media. The term medium is properly applicable to 

 solids, liquids, and gases when we consider a body contained in 

 or surrounded by them. 



Media grouped in spheroidal masses present us matter in the 

 form of the heavenly bodies — the sun and stars ; in the form 

 of planets — Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, the new smaller 

 planets as well as the more ancient, Ceres, Juno, Pallas, Vesta, 

 Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus ; and in the form of the earthly 

 satellites and those of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. 



If we descend again to the earth we learn that solids, liquids, 

 and gases are formed of different substances, simple or compound, 

 called mineral. We see there organized parasites generally fixed 

 in the solid medium, and growing in the liquid or gaseous me- 

 dium : these are plants. Finally, we see other systems of in- 

 dependent bodies which are also parasites of the earth, which 

 climb, walk, swim, or fly upon or in the solid, liquid, or gaseous 

 media : these are animals. 



Science, by induction or experimental deduction, takes us 

 further : it shows us all the bodies of the earth formed of infi- 

 nitely small molecules, simple or compound, remaining always 

 the same, whether they constitute minerals, vegetables, or 

 animals. 



Atomic elements are exceedingly few in number : twelve or 

 thirteen metalloids and forty or fifty metals, suffice to give rise 

 to the millions of varied forms of all the bodies which we know 

 on the earth ; and chemical philosophy readily leads us to sup- 

 pose that these elements may be reduced to one or two. 



Such is the totality of the forms assumed by pressible, pon- 

 derable matter which is atomized (that is, grouped in atoms), a 



