The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-10-07
THE ATOMIC THEORY.
THE OPENING ADDRESS At GLAS-
GOV.

President RuecIker, of the British As
ISOLATION, Reviews One of the Main
Hypothesis Upon Which Modern
Physical Science is Built.
The following abstract of the opening
address by President Arthur Ruecker
at the recent annual meeting of the
British association at Glasgow will in
terest many:
The president said he had found it
impossible, even if it were desirable to
avoid the inclination to look back upon
the past century from the standpoint of
to-day. Two years ago Sir Michael
Foster dealt with the work of the CEN
fury as whole. Last year Sir William
Turner discussed in greater detail the
growth of single branch of science. A
third and humber task remained
namely, to fix their attention on some
of the hypothesis and assumptions on
which the fabric of modern theoretical
science had been built and to inquire
whether the foundations had been so
well and truly laid that they might
be trusted to sustain the mighty super
structure which was being raised upon
them. The moment was opportune.
The three chief conceptions which for
many years had dominated physical as
distinct from biological science had
been the theories of the existence of
atoms, of the mechanical nature of
heat, and of the existence of the ether.
Dalton's atomic theory was first given
to the world by a Glasgow professor
Thomas Thomson--in the year 1907,
Dalton having communicated it to him
In 1904. Rumford's and Davys expert
ments on the nature of heat were pub
lished in 1898 and 1899 respectively, and
the celebrated Bakerian lecture in
which Thomas Young established the
undulatory theory by explaining the in
reference of light appeared in the
philosophical Transactions" in 1901
The keynotes of the physical science of
the nineteenth century were thus
struck, as the century began, by four
of their fellow countrymen, one of
whom, Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count
Rumford, preferred exile from the land
of his birth to the loss of his birth
right as British citizen. 1t was well
known that of late doubts had arisen
which the mechanical theory of heat
was closely bound up and the theory of
the existence OFF an ether had not
served their purpose, and whether the
time had not come to reconsider them.
To keep the discussion within reasona-
BILE limits he would illustrate the prin-
ciple under review by means of the
atomic theory, with comparatively
little reference to the ether.
The president went on to consider the
position Of the atomic theory, to which
the greater part of his paper was de-
voted. 1t was mainly of technical
character The question at issue was
he said, whether the hypothesis which
were at the base of this and the other
scientific theories now most generally
accepted, were to be regarded as accu-
rate descriptions of the constitution of !,
the universe, or merely as convenient |
fictions. He maintained that combin-
ing the phenomena of diffusion, expan-
sion and heat, 1T was not too much to
say that no hypothesis which made
them Ineligible had ever been framed |
other than those which were at the |
basis Of the atomic theory. Proceeding, !
the president said: 1.-The wraiths of !
phlogiston, caloric, luminiferous cor
puscles and crowd of other phan-
toms haunt the Investigator, and as the
grim host vanishes into not hingness he
cannot but wonder if his own concep- +
ton of atoms and of the ether
shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant
faded,
Leave not a Wrack behind.
But though science, like Bunyans
hero, has sometimes had to pass
through the "yalley of humiliation"
the specters which meet it there are
not really dangerous, if they are boldly
faced The facts that mistakes have
been made, that theories have been
and for time accepted
which later invest igations have dis
do not necessarily discredit the
method adopted. In scientific theories,
as in the world around us, there is a
survival of the fittest, and DR.. James
Wards unsympathetic account of the
plumbers of those whose work, after all,
has shed glory on the nineteenth CEN
fury, might, mutatis mutandis, stand
for description of the history of the
advance Of civilization. "The story of
the progress so far he tells us, sis
briefly this-divergence between theory
and fact one part of the way, the
wreckage of abandoned fictions for the
rest, with an unattainable goal of phe-
nihilism and metaphysical
beyond. 1.-THE path of
says Professor Karl Pear 1
son, sis strewn with the wreck of ma
lions. Traces are everywhere to be |
seen of the hetatombs of inferior races ,
and of victims who found not the mar {
row way to the greater perfection. |
Yet these dead peoples are, in very I
truth, the stepping-stones on which 3
mankind has arisen to the higher intel ,
ectual and deeper emotional life of to- |
lay" 1t is only necessary to add that +
he progress of society is directed to- ,
ward an unattainabe goal of universal ,
to make the parallel COM +
,lete. And so, in the one case as in the G
,ther, we may leave 1.-The read to bury ,
heir dead" The question before us is f
lot whether we, too, may not be trust i
ng to false ideas, erroneous expert I
nents, evanscent theories. No doubt t
We are; but, without making an inso- t
ent claim to be better than our faith f
'rs, we NAV fairly contend that. amid t