Electric Origin of Molecular Attraction. 643 



for it the formula we used in calculating the period of rotation 

 of £? in NaCl, namely, 



ir 2 __e* 1 



~J~7 r W ; 

 /. eV=NVi* 8 . 



Now i is constant ; and if Nv is constant for the metals, then 

 e q s 2 x s z ; and if s is equal or proportional to the linear 

 dimension of the atom, the remarkable proportionality between 

 eV 2 and volume of atom in the uncombined metals would be 

 accounted for.^ It would seem as though the % and \) in a 

 metallic atom moved out till centrifugal force balanced elec- 

 trical attraction, and so determined the linear dimensions of 

 the atom. If we remember that N varies inversely as the 

 velocity of light through the atom, the condition that-Nu is 

 to be constant makes the ratio of v the linear velocity of # or 

 b to that of light through the atom constant, a result already 

 made probable in the 7th section of " The Cause of the 

 Structure of Spectra." 



On passing from the simple cases of metals and binary 

 compounds, where we are dealing with only a few regularly 

 arranged doublets in each molecule, to typical organic com- 

 pounds where the atoms are built up to molecules by means 

 of elaborate ramifications of doublets^ we must expect to pass 

 through intermediate types, w T here the simplicity of the 

 binary compounds is lost without being replaced by the other 

 sort of simplicity which we may expect on account of the 

 law of averages coming into play in the complex organic 

 compounds. We had better then study the case of the typical 

 complex organic molecule first. We must expect the doublets 

 in such a molecule to exercise a mutual directive action on 

 one another, so that the whole molecule may be considered 

 to have an electric moment obtained in the following way. 

 It is known that with a uniformly magnetized sphere the 

 external field of force is the same as that of a small magnet 

 at its centre with a magnetic moment equal to the intensity 

 of magnetization multiplied by the volume of the sphere. 

 Therefore for a number of magnetic spheres of different 

 sizes uniformly magnetized with the same intensity the mag- 

 netic moment of each will be proportional to its volume. Now 

 in a complex molecule we must on the average expect the 

 doublets to arrange themselves so as to correspond as nearly 

 as possible to the case of uniform magnetization. For the 

 electric doublet I have already proposed the name neutron, 

 so the proposal we are considering might be called that of an 



2U2 



