The question whether atoms exist or not has but little significance from a chemical point; its discussion belongs rather to metaphysics. In chemistry we have only to decide whether the assumption of atoms is an hypothesis adapted to the explanation of chemical phenomena. More especially have we to consider the question whether a further development of the atomic hypothesis promises to advance our knowledge of the mechanism of chemical phenomena.
I have no hesitation in saying that, from a philosophical point of view, I do not believe in the actual existence of atoms, taking the word in its literal signification of indivisible particles of matter; I rather expect that we shall some day find for what we now call atoms a mathematico-mechanical explanation which will render an account of atomic weight, of atomicity, and of numerous other properties of the so-called atoms. As a chemist, however, I regard the assumption of atoms not only as advisable, but as absolutely necessary, in chemistry. I will even go further, and declare my belief that _chemical atoms exist_, provided the term be understood to denote those particles of matter which undergo no further division in chemical metamorphoses. Should the progress of science lead to a theory of the constitution of chemical atoms—important as such a knowledge might be for the general philosophy of matter—it would make but little alteration in chemistry itself. The chemical atoms will always remain the chemical unit; and for the specially chemical considerations we may always start from the constitution of atoms, and avail ourselves of the simplified expression thus obtained—that is to say, of the atomic hypothesis. We may, in fact, adopt the view of Dumas and of Faraday—that, _whether matter be atomic or not, thus much is certain: that, granting it to be atomic, it would appear as it now does_.[1]
[1] _The Study of Chemical Composition_, by Ida Freund (Cambridge University Press), 1904.
The greater part of that which follows will be devoted, therefore, to an exposition of certain of the great advances in knowledge—many of them of primary importance—which have been made during the last fifty or sixty years and which have served to strengthen this extended conception of the atomic theory, and to establish its position as an article of the scientific faith of the twentieth century.