Views of Wald and Ostwald.
§ 84. Such modifications of the atomic theory as those we have briefly discussed above, although profoundly modifying, and, indeed, controverting the philosophical significance of Dalton’s theory as originally formulated, leave its chemical significance practically unchanged. The atoms can be regarded no longer as the eternal, indissoluble gods of Nature that they were once supposed to be; thus, Materialism is deprived of what was thought to be its scientific basis.[98] But the science of Chemistry is unaffected thereby; the atoms are not the ultimate units out of which material things are built, but the atoms cannot be decomposed by purely chemical means; the “elements” are not truly elemental, but they are chemical elements. However, the atomic theory has been subjected to a far more searching criticism. Wald argues that substances obey the law of definite proportions because of the way in which they are prepared; chemists refuse, he says, to admit any substance as a definite chemical compound unless it does obey this law. Wald’s opinions have been supported by Professor Ostwald, who has attempted to deduce the other stoichiometric laws on these grounds without assuming any atomic hypothesis[99]; but these new ideas do not appear to have gained the approval of chemists in general. It is not to be supposed that chemists will give up without a struggle a mental tool of such great utility as Dalton’s theory, in spite of its defects, has proved itself to be. There does seem, however, to be logic in the arguments of Wald and Ostwald, but the trend of recent scientific theory and research does not appear to be in the direction of Wald’s views. Certainly, however, it appears that, on the one hand, the atomic theory is not necessitated by the so-called “stoichiometric laws”; but, on the other hand, a molecular constitution of matter seems to be demanded by the phenomenon known as the “Brownian Movement,” i.e., the spontaneous, irregular and apparently perpetual movement of microscopic portions of solid matter when immersed in a liquid medium; such movement appearing to be explicable only as the result of the motion of the molecules of which the liquid in question is built up.[100]
[98] For a critical examination of Materialism, the reader is referred to the present writer’s Matter, Spirit and the Cosmos (Rider, 1910), especially Chapters I. and IV.
[99] W. Ostwald: “Faraday Lecture,” Journal of the Chemical Society, vol. lxxxv. (1904), pp. 506 et seq. See also W. Ostwald: The Fundamental Principles of Chemistry (translated by H. W. Morse, 1909), especially Chapters VI., VII. and VIII.
[100] For an account of this singular phenomenon, see Prof. Jean Perrin: Brownian Movement and Molecular Reality (translated from the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 8me Séries, September, 1909, by F. Soddy, M.A., F.R.S., 1910).