46 



ON THE ELEMENTARY AND CONSTITUENT 



appear competent, and which were not accounted for under the old system, 

 Epicurus supposed that some atoms were occasionally possessed of a third, 

 by which, in some very small degree, they descended in an oblique or curvi- 

 linear direction, deviating from the common and right line anomalously; and 

 in this respect resembling the oscillations of the magnetic needle. 



These infinite groups of atoms, flying through all time and space in differ- 

 ent directions, and under different laws, have interchangeably tried and exhi- 

 bited every possible mode of rencounter ; sometimes repelled from each 

 other by concussion, and sometimes adhering to each other from their own 

 jagged or pointed construction, or from the casual interstices which two or 

 more connected atoms must produce, and which may be just adapted to those 

 of other figures, as globular, oval, or square. Hence the origin of compound 

 and visible bodies ; hence the origin of large masses of matter ; hence, event- 

 ually, the origin of the world itself. When these primary atoms are closely 

 compacted, and but little vacuity or space lies between, they produce those 

 kinds of substances which we denominate solid, as stones and metals ; when 

 they are loose and disjoined, and a large quantity of space or vacuity is inter- 

 posed, they exhibit bodies of lax texture, as wool, water, vapour. In one 

 mode of combination they form earth ; in another, air; and in another, fire. 

 Arranged in one way, they produce vegetation and irritability ; in another 

 way, animal life and perception. Man hence arises, families are formed, so- 

 cieties are multiplied, and governments are instituted. 



The world, thus generated, is perpetually sustained by the application of 

 fresh tides of elementary atoms, flying with inconceivable rapidity through 

 all the infinity of space, invisible from their minuteness, and occupying the 

 posts of those that are as perpetually flying off". Yet nothing is eternal or 

 immutable but these elementary seeds or atoms themselves. The compound 

 forms of matter are continually decomposing and dissolving into their original 

 corpuscles ; to this there is no exception : minerals, vegetables, and animals, 

 in this respect all alike, when they lose their present make, perishing for 

 ever, and new combinations proceeding from the matter into which they dis- 

 solve. But the world itself is a compound though not an organized being; 

 sustained and nourished, like organized beings, from the material pabulum 

 that floats through the void of infinity. The world itself must, therefore, in 

 the same manner, perish : it had a beginning, and it will have an end. Its 

 present crasis will be decompounded; it will return to its original, its elemen- 

 tary atoms ; and new worlds will arise from its destruction. 



Space is infinite, material atoms are infinite, but the world is not infinite. 

 This, then, is not the only world, nor the only material system that exists. 

 The cause that has produced this visible system is competent to produce 

 others : it has been acting perpetually from all eternity ; and there are other 

 worlds, and other systems of worlds, existing around us. 



Those who are acquainted with the writings of Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. 

 Locke, will perceive in this sketch of the Atomic philosophy the rudiments of a 

 very great part of their own systems, so far as relates to physics ; we may, 

 indeed, fairly regard them as offsets from the theory before us, cleared in a 

 very great degree of its errors, and enlarged in their principles, and forti- 

 fied by more recent observations and discoveries. I must, for the present, 

 confine myself to the following quotations from the first of these high orna- 

 ments of our country. "All things considered," says Sir Isaac, "it seems 

 probable that God, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy, hard, im- 

 penetrable, moveable particles ; of such sizes and figures, and with such other 

 properties^, and in such proportion to space as most conduced to the end for 

 which he formed them." So again : " While the primitive and solid particles 

 of matter continue entire, they may compose bodies of one and the same 

 nature and texture in all ages ; but should they wear away, or break in pieces, 

 the nature of things depending on them would be changed. Water and 

 earth, composed of old worn particles and fragments of particles, would not 

 be of the same nature and texture now, with water and earth composed of 

 entire particles at the beginning ; and therefore, that nature may be lasting, 



