CHAPTER II.

GENERAL CONCEPT OF MATTER (continued): (B) RELA

TIVE SIGNIFICATION OF THE FOLLOWING PHRASES:

§ 17. Properties of matter-§ 18. Essence of matter-§ 19. Matter and force-§ 20. Mass and movement-§ 21. Universal attraction-§ 22. Physiological or physical change-§ 23. Inertia of matter-§ 24. Conservation of energy.

§ 17. PROPERTIES OF MATTER.

The concept of matter, as we have just seen, is very complex, containing in its signification the four conceptual elements: the two attributive, substance and activity; and the two relative, space and time.

Ordinarily speaking, matter expressly means only the substance of objects; this is the irreflexive signification of the word matter; but in the scientific sense this word connotes the notion of the other three elemental abstractions which are the complements of substance: activity, space, and time. These words, physiologically employed, express, as we have already said, abstract concepts, limited to the objects or material things, which are concrete realities.

All the so-called properties of matter are, like the conceptual elements, but abstract concepts, nevertheless extension and impenetrability are considered as universal

properties of matter by all physicists, excepting those who maintain pure dynamism by denying the real extension of matter and admitting only elemental activities without extension, related in the infinite in such a manner as to produce sensations with the appearance of a world of corpuscular things not continuous in space. With such a fantastic idea some physicists, among them great mathematicians, presume to solve the difficulties of some problems of matter such as its unity, divisibility, and indestructibility. This hypothesis of pure dynamism explains penetrability of bodies by the false statement that matter is absolutely lacking in extension, and that it is constituted by mathematical points endowed with the ideal elements they call forces, which are considered to be infinitely small (and this amounts to nothing) in comparison with the distances which separate them from one another. Dynamists, then, consider the total extension of objects as an effort of the predominating repulsive forces of such points. It is clear that this inconceivable hypothesis springs from a mathematical abstraction.

We must recognize extension as a general predicate of matter which is employed in all objects, but it does not establish absolute distinction or attribution, it is only a distinction of relation. It has already been effectually demonstrated that extension is the measure of the relations of space, that is, a quantitative determination of any object or group of objects. Two objects could not occupy the same space at the same time if they were extended in absolute, and this is the meaning of the word impenetrability. But practically we see that all bodies are penetrable, a fact which is contradictory to the idea of considering objects endowed with abso

lute extension. This contradiction is obviated by giving to the terms "extension" and "impenetrability" their true relative signification, as practically we never reach the limits of the minimum extension of bodies, nor of course the limits of their impenetrability; a complete or absolute case of impenetrability never comes under our observation.

But most physicists pretend to know by direct sensual experience that bodies are impenetrable, and they say they arrive at this conclusion without even the necessity of appealing to reason. They have formed such an illusion from the crudest appearances of massive mechanics, considering space as an objective entity in which every object should occupy in its minimum extension a fixed or determined part into which no other body could penetrate, for that space they say is absolutely full. But the determination of minimum or absolute extension is an impossibility, it is an eternal "X" (unknown quantity) practically indeterminable, and parallel with the fixation of the absolute zero in the thermometric scale, which can be only the reduction to nothing.

We have already demonstrated that the reality of space is an ontological enigma, so it only remains for us now to prove that experience has never given us the knowledge of the minimum limit of the extension of a body. No one doubts that when we submit bodies, especially liquids, to compression by means of the most powerful machinery, we find a limit of compressibility to the strongest forces that can thus be employed in molar or massive mechanics, but we must not infer from this that we have reached the minimum extension of bodies or the limit of their impenetrability, because the same space can be occupied by another body, as is

observed from the reduction of volume when many fluids are mixed, and from the great contraction of volume which frequently occurs in the combination of liquids, though they seem incompressible by the force of the most powerful presses. It is also well known that if two or more gases are enclosed in the same cavity (even without determining chemical metamorphoses) each gas is distributed in that space in the same manner as if it were alone.

All bodies are really penetrable, and the continuity of their contents is only apparent. Impenetrability as well as extension is a relative property-a relation of space-which depends on the mutual action of bodies, and not an absolute inherence in matter. It is evident that a determined particle of matter must occupy some minimum space, but this fact cannot be acquired by our knowledge of objective realities, as these are constituted by corpuscles separated by imponderable ether always in movement (heat), and consequently the space which is apparently occupied by bodies cannot be absolutely filled with matter, because otherwise such movement could not be possible.

The false presupposition that objects are in reality in the same correlation as they appear to human understanding has also conduced to the error of considering impenetrability of matter as an absolute property known by experience; thus, because solids are perceived before fluids, we are inclined to the spontaneous or irreflexive preference of supposing that matter is primordially endowed with solidity, or impenetrable rigidity, and that softness, flexibility and fluidity result from complex modes of aggregation. But, as we have already said, the ultimate corpuscular elements of bodies—atoms,

which are supposed to constitute ponderable matter— must never be in perfect continuity or absolute contact in all parts, because otherwise they would not permit any form of internal movement, which consists in oscillations of imponderable matter (progene), the degree of temperature and the state of bodies being thus determined. The affirmation of impenetrability is merely gratuitous in the sense of observation, it is solely a condition which presupposes reasoning, because to deny it would be a contradiction of the affirmation of objective existence. But what are in reality the practical

limits of penetrability? repeat, any more than we know the absolute zero or absolute lack of heat. Accordingly extension and penetrability (instead of impenetrability) are sensual data of quantitative relation which vary, not only in the quantity of matter, but also in the movement of the mechanic action, internal, as well as external. The different states of bodies result from the relation of internal and external actions, which arise from the interaction of objects with one another. Solidity is not an attribute of objects; it is only the concept of relative abstraction; in reality we have never seen an absolutely solid body; the greatest or least resistance observed in different bodies is a relative condition especially contrary to thermic activity. All material elements have not the relative properties of ponderable masses, though these properties are determined by the effect of the distribution and interaction of the parts; the relation among the material elements is purely dynamic.

We do not know them, we

We shall see that the solidity of a body does not depend on the integral solidity of its ultimate elements, but results from want of equilibrium in favour of ex