306 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

atoms," of a differently complex pattern in each case,* or it

may be in terms of brain waves or thrills traversing the

nerves, in the case of feelings or of thoughts. A mechanical

explanation of all nature is an avowed ideal with many

men, and is felt as a comfort by very many more. So

widespread a tendency must be due to no less widespread

a cause, and it is a fact that men do feel a certain satisfaction

and mental rest in such an interpretation of phenomena of

all orders, from physical energies to feelings and thoughts.

What, then, may be the reason for this feeling of satisfaction

in the explanation of matters the most diverse by a con-

ception of solid bodies in motion?

As we have pointed out in preceding chapters, we can

* A striking example of this tendency has been shown by Professor Ilaeckel,

who ventures to describe atoms as if he had actually seen and handled them. He

tells us that (in his Monism, pp. 26 and 32 of the English Translation, Adam and

Charles Black, 1894), "To these original or mass atoms the ultimate discrete

particles of inert "ponderable" matter we can with more or less probability

ascribe a number of eternal and inalienable fundamental attributes ; they are

probably everywhere in space of like magnitude and constitution. Although

possessing a very definite finite magnitude, they are, by virtue of their very

nature, indivisible. Their shape we may take to be spherical ; they are inert

(in the physical sense), unchangeable, inelastic, and impenetrable by the ether.

Apart from the attribute of inertia, the most important characteristic of these

ultimate atoms is their chemical affinity their tendency to apply themselves

to one another and combine in small groups in an orderly fashion. These

fixed groups ... of primitive atoms are the atoms of the elements the well-

known "indivisible" atoms of chemistry, the qualitative, and, so far as our

present empirical knowledge goes, unchangeable distinctions of our chemical

elements are therefore solely conditioned by the varying number and disposition

of the similar primitive atoms of which they are composed." As to the most

remote past, he speaks of "An unbroken series of natural events following an

orderly course of evolution according to fixed laws . . . from a primeval chaos to

the present 'order of the cosmos.' At the outset, there is nothing in infinite

space but mobile elastic ether and innumerable similar separate particles, the

primitive atoms, scattered throughout it in the form of dust ; perhaps these

are themselves originally 'points of condensation' of the vibrating 'substance,'

the remainder of which constitute the ether. The atoms of our elements

arise from the grouping together in definite numbers of the primitive atoms

or atoms of mass."

atoms," of a differently complex pattern in each case,* or it

may be in terms of brain waves or thrills traversing the

nerves, in the case of feelings or of thoughts. A mechanical

explanation of all nature is an avowed ideal with many

men, and is felt as a comfort by very many more. So

widespread a tendency must be due to no less widespread

a cause, and it is a fact that men do feel a certain satisfaction

and mental rest in such an interpretation of phenomena of

all orders, from physical energies to feelings and thoughts.

What, then, may be the reason for this feeling of satisfaction

in the explanation of matters the most diverse by a con-

ception of solid bodies in motion?

As we have pointed out in preceding chapters, we can

* A striking example of this tendency has been shown by Professor Ilaeckel,

who ventures to describe atoms as if he had actually seen and handled them. He

tells us that (in his Monism, pp. 26 and 32 of the English Translation, Adam and

Charles Black, 1894), "To these original or mass atoms the ultimate discrete

particles of inert "ponderable" matter we can with more or less probability

ascribe a number of eternal and inalienable fundamental attributes ; they are

probably everywhere in space of like magnitude and constitution. Although

possessing a very definite finite magnitude, they are, by virtue of their very

nature, indivisible. Their shape we may take to be spherical ; they are inert

(in the physical sense), unchangeable, inelastic, and impenetrable by the ether.

Apart from the attribute of inertia, the most important characteristic of these

ultimate atoms is their chemical affinity their tendency to apply themselves

to one another and combine in small groups in an orderly fashion. These

fixed groups ... of primitive atoms are the atoms of the elements the well-

known "indivisible" atoms of chemistry, the qualitative, and, so far as our

present empirical knowledge goes, unchangeable distinctions of our chemical

elements are therefore solely conditioned by the varying number and disposition

of the similar primitive atoms of which they are composed." As to the most

remote past, he speaks of "An unbroken series of natural events following an

orderly course of evolution according to fixed laws . . . from a primeval chaos to

the present 'order of the cosmos.' At the outset, there is nothing in infinite

space but mobile elastic ether and innumerable similar separate particles, the

primitive atoms, scattered throughout it in the form of dust ; perhaps these

are themselves originally 'points of condensation' of the vibrating 'substance,'

the remainder of which constitute the ether. The atoms of our elements

arise from the grouping together in definite numbers of the primitive atoms

or atoms of mass."