: The problem which we are trying to solve is this are the ultimate units of this substantially changeless whole, little complete types of the whole? Are these also systems; each complete and indestructible; never increasing, never diminishing, but each changing continually as the universe changes— by perpetual vibrations among its parts? Such vibrations would enable all these units of the cosmos to coöperate among themselves and yet to remain unchanged and indivisible as persisting units. Is the cosmos a vast unity embracing the smaller units? Is each unit patterned after the whole-a little determinate structure fashioned in its own likeness? The answer to this question must be written unequivocally in every atom. The atomic modes of interaction ought to enable us to answer the inquiry either positively or negatively. Since every atom is a coöperative part in the total of all substance, it is either a least unit, a least division which can act as a partially independent centre of energies, or else there is a still smaller division possible. But the smallest division is the ultimate atom; the unit of force and extension. Then if the total is indestructible, its least division must be also indestructible. In this way logic would answer the question. But it must be decided, in addition, by undisputed facts. The exceeding complexity of the atomic coöperations lead us to the conclusion that, simple as it must be in nature, it is yet extremely manifold in functions. The molecule is the unit of the physicist; but within the molecule each atom exerts its own proper forces, many, various, and simultaneous. Gravity is continually drawing the atom in all directions; for it possesses gravity in its own right -not because it takes part in a mass with other particles. Its vibrations of light, heat, electricity, etc., enter into the molecular vibrations and are still an active influence in the combined result. Its cohesive forces bind it to the rest of its molecule and also to the larger body of which it is one component part. Thus our ultimate atom, when it is one of the active units in a living organism, may be at the same moment gravitating towards the earth with great rapidity and also actively sustaining energetic relations with a number of distant planets, and the sun. At the same instant it may glow with the richest color, may vibrate with heat and with a powerful electrical energy, at once attracting and repelling other bodies; it may move as a projectile, exchanging motion for resistance to motion with the atmosphere; it may bind itself to other atoms with forces more powerful than iron clamps; and it may take its own proper share in the countless number of vital processes pertaining to its organism; such as assimilating and digesting food, promoting circulation, muscular action of many kinds, nervous activity, etc. It may even take some part in the psychical operations which are dependent upon its organism. The inference is, that the atom which is actively part and parcel of all these many diverse but coördinated movements, vastly complex as they are shown to be, must be itself an extremely modifiable system of forces, held together in one bond of unity by something which is not force though inseparably allied to it. What this something else is, and how they can be supposed to co-exist in one simple and indivisible structure, it must be my next effort to indicate with as much definiteness as is possible. A NEW THEORY OF ATOMIC STRUCTURE. Practical science accepts the extended.-Force and extension parallel realities. They condition each other in every unit of being.— Unextended force impossible in thought and in fact.—Electricity as related to extension.—Modes of force and extension vary in mutual relationship.-Definition of unit of matter.—Illustrated by relations in the triangle.-A conditioned existence requires unlikeness in kind in the conditioning factors.-Matter conditioned by force and extension. Minds conditioned by force, extension, and sentient force of varying qualities. RACTICAL science assures us that all sub PRAC stance is indestructible. It proves, so far as proof of any question of fact is possible, that no particle of matter is either originated or destroyed. It proves that force and extension are equally persistent; that force is not extension, that extension is not force; and yet that the two are indivisible. They coöperate in a multitude of ways, the result being the most diverse forms of the extended and equally diverse modes of force—both more than the sands of the sea-shore for number. Each limits the other. All practical science deals with the properties of the extended, such as weight and structure, in entire good faith; treating them in all respects as literal relatives. It is compelled to regard them in this light. They everywhere assert themselves to be as real, as rigidly determined in their varying phases, as quantitative in every character, as mathematically related among themselves, and as accurately adjusted to coöperative forces as the modes of force are adapted among themselves. It is said to be "no longer a subject of doubt in the minds of savants who have got beyond experimentation, that extension is an image and a show rather than an essential constituent property of bodies." But the surveyor could not easily admit that the broad earth which he estimates by acres can be made up of mere unextended force. The chemist, like the grocer, must believe in his heart that weight represents something different from a vibration or any form of motion-that it represents something more than pure resistance. Size, and form, and structure in bodies, is something unlike in kind from the powers or active properties of bodies. The instincts of every child teach it so |