Licence: In copyright
Credit: The concepts and theories of modern physics / By J.B. Stallo. Source: Wellcome Collection.
134/376 (page 84)
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The concepts and theories of modern physics / By J.B. Stallo. Source: Wellcome Collection.
![CHAPTER YII. THE THEORY OF THE ATOMIC CONSTITUTION OF MATTER. The doctrine that an exhaustive analysis of matter into its real elements, if it could be practically effected, would yield an aggregate of indivisible and indestructi- ble particles, is one of the eai-liest products of human s])eculation, and has held its ground more persistently than any other tenet of science or philosophy. It is true that the atomic theory, since its tii’st promulgation by the old Greek philosophers, and its elaborate state- ment by Lucretius, has been modified and refined. There is probably no one, at this day, who invests the atoms with hooks and loops, or accounts for the^ bitter taste of wormwood by the raggedness, and for the sweetness of honey and milk by the smooth roundness of the constituent atoms.* But the atoms of modern science are still of determinate weight, if not of defi- nite, uniform and constant figure, and stand for some- thing more than abstract units even in the view of those who, like Boscovich, Faraday, Ampere, or Fechner, pro- fess to reo-ard them as mere centers of force. And o there is no difficulty in stating the atomic doctrine in terms applicable alike to all the acceptations in which it is now held by scientific men. AVhatever diversity of opinion may jirevail as to the form, size, etc., of the atoms, all who advance the atomic hypothesis, in any of * Lucretius, Dc Rerum Nat., ii, 398 scq.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29011073_0134.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
