I. Hypothesis of Continuous Matter. It may be

supposed that matter is homogeneous and continuous, in which case there is no limit to the infinite divisibility of bodies. This view was held by Descartes*.
This conjecture is consistent with the facts deducible by untrained observation, but there are many other phenomena for which it does not account ; moreover there seems to be no way of reconciling such a structure of matter either with the facts of chemical changes or with the results of spectrum analysis. At any rate the theory must be regarded as extremely im- probable.