Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/283

Rh because a great number of people appear to have been led to the conclusion that this theory is very similar to the guesses which we find in ancient writers—Democritus and Lucretius. It so happens that these ancient writers did hold a view of the constitution of things which in many striking respects agrees with the view which we hold in modern times. This parallelism has been brought recently before the public by Prof. Tyndall in his excellent address at Belfast. And it is perhaps on account of the parallelism, which he pointed out at that place, between the theories held among the ancients and the theory now held among the moderns, that many people who are acquainted with classic literature have thought that a knowledge of the views of Democritus and Lucretius would enable them to understand and criticise the modern theory of matter. That, however, is a mistake. The difference between the two is mainly this: the atomic theory of Democritus was a guess, and no more than a guess. Every body around him was guessing about the origin of things, and they guessed in a great number of ways; but he happened to make a guess which was more near the right thing than any of the others. This view was right in its main hypothesis, that all things are made up of elementary parts, and that the different properties of different things depend rather upon difference of arrangement than upon ultimate difference in the substance of which they are composed. Although this was contained in the atomic theory of Democritus, as expounded by Lucretius, yet it will be found by any one who examines further the consequences which are drawn from it, that it very soon diverges from the truth of things, as we might naturally expect it would. On the contrary, the view of the constitution of matter which is held by scientific men in the present day is not a guess at all.

In the first place, I will endeavor to explain what are the main points in this theory. First of all we must take the simplest form of matter, which turns out to be a gas—such, for example, as the air in this room. The belief of scientific men in the present day is that this air is not a continuous thing, that it does not fill the whole of the space in the room, but is made up of an enormous number of exceedingly small particles. There are two sorts of particles: one sort of particle is oxygen, and another sort of particle nitrogen. All the particles of oxygen are as near as possible alike in these two respects: first in weight, and secondly in certain peculiarities of mechanical structure. These small molecules are not at rest in the room, but are flying about in all directions with a mean velocity of seventeen miles a minute. They do not fly far in one direction; but any particular molecule, after going over an incredibly short distance—the measure of which has been made—meets another, not exactly plump, but a little on one side, so that they behave to one another somewhat in the same way as two people do who are dancing Sir Roger de Coverley; they join hands, swing round, and then fly away in different