Atomism

Atomism is a doctrine which proposes to explain the bodily universe by pointing out the fact that bodies are made of smaller bodies. And, while we acknowledge the manifest fact, we are not satisfied with the inadequate explanation.

It must be clearly understood that we are not now discussing the atomic theory which is the currently accepted science of matter. We are discussing the theory of atomism which is an exploded philosophy of matter. We recognize the value of the atomic theory. We are quite ready to acknowledge that chemically compounded substances are made up of minimum-particles called molecules, and that molecules are made up of chemically simple particles called atoms, and that atoms are made of protons and electrons and imponderable matter. This, after all, is plain science fresh from the laboratory, and has nothing directly to do with philosophy. But atom- ism proposes itself as a philosophy, and with this philosophy we are immediately concerned.

The atomic theory may be illustrated as the description of a house by an enumeration of its parts, down to the smallest items used in the building. Atomism is illustrated in the explanation of the house in terms of its parts, without reference to architect or builder, and without reference to forest or lumberyard or quarry or brick-works. Very naturally, we may accept the description of the house as true and valuable, and at the same time we may reject the explanation of the house as silly and inadequate. In a word, we accept atoms (and the atomic theory) ; but we reject atomism.

Atomism and atom are words taken from the Greek atomos which means “uncut” and even “indivisible.” The indivisibility here indicated is structural indivisibility or, in a very precise sense, physical indivisibility. For when one has divided and subdivided a bodily substance until available instruments can make no further partition, one has come to a minimum-particle of the substance. This minimumparticle is, as a quantity, still further divisible, and indefinitely so, for it has halves and quarters and hundredths and millionths, and so on endlessly. Hence, when we call a particle of bodily substance indivisible we mean one of two things: we mean either that we have no means of making a further actual division of the matter, or we mean that fur- ther actual division would affect the very nature of thé material handled and change it into another specific kind of bodily substance.

When the term atom was first applied to the minimum-particle of a chemically simple substance, it was thought that the word was just and properly descriptive; it was thought that the atom could not be divided; that it was really something uncut and uncuttable. But modern science has “cut the uncuttable,” so to speak, and the atom now has its own “building stones,” as we have noticed in another place. However, the term has been retained even if its original literal meaning is now no longer justified. This comment refers, of course, to the atom as handled in physical science. In the philosophy of matter here considered (that is, in atomism) the atom still means an uncut and uncuttable minimum of matter which is, in one way or another, the cause and the explanation of the bodily world.

b) TENETS OF ATOMISM

There are two types of philosophical atomism, mechanistic atomism and dynamistic atomism. Both hold that matter is to be explained ultimately in the fact that bodily substance is made up of minimumbodies, called atoms, which coalesce to form the world and all the bodily things in the world, lifeless and living. Both hold that the atoms are all of the same specific kind; that is, both types of atomism teach the homogeneity of matter, which means that there is no essential difference between clod and plant, between plant and animal, between brute and man; the world is “all of a piece.” But after agreeing that matter is made of atoms which are of the same specific kind, the two schools of atomists part company. We shall speak of their tenets in separate paragraphs:

I. Mechanistic Atomism (also called Pure Atomism) holds that the atoms or minimum-amounts of bodily substance differ only in size and in motion; they have no indwelling power, force, or faculty, by which they act; they are guided by no tendency, purpose, or finality, in the unions which, as a fact, they effect ; they do not lose their identity or undergo substantial change when they coalesce to form natural bodies, for in all their movements their own being is invariable and constant. The movement of the atoms is an external or extrinsic movement, a thing undergone, a thing communicated to the atoms from something outside themselves. Since the atoms have no force or power of their own, they cannot exercise any positive activity, and therefore all their movement is a matter of applied outside force. Hence pure atomism postulates a mover or a motor-force outside the atoms; and ultimately this must be the First Mover or God. Pure atomism is, therefore, necessarily theistic; it presupposes a God. Atheists, indeed, like the Roman poet-philosopher Lucretius, have held by the theory of atomism, but they do so only by ignoring the cause of motion and focussing upon the fact of motion as an explanation of the universe. But, acting thus, they deify matter itself (at least equivalently), and become pantheists. Some Christians, like Descartes and Secchi, have professed pure atomism as the philosophy of the bodily world, but these do not attempt to explain man’s spiritual activities (intellection and volition) in terms of atoms and local motion; indeed, Secchi limits his atomism to the inorganic or non-living world.

Notable names associated with the history of pure or mechanistic atomism are, among the ancients, Heraclitus and Anaxagoras of the 6 century B.C.; Democritus of the 5 century B. c.; Epicurus of the late 4 and early 3 century B. c.; Lucretius of the first century B.c. In Christian times, Gassendi (1592- 1656) and Descartes (1597-1650) were proponents of atomism.

2. Dynamistic Atomism teaches that the atoms or minimum-particles of bodily substance are endowed with an indwelling force or power of motion. Some atomists of this type say that the motion of atoms is due to a twofold power of attraction and repulsion ; others find a sufficient explanation of motion in the repulsive power alone. Some say that the atoms come into immediate contact to form bodies; others declare

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that the atoms are always separated, even in the most solid of bodies, by vacuum-intervals or vacuoles,— and thus these latter atomists teach the actuality of actio in distans which we have already noticed as a physical, if not an absolute, impossibility. Dynamistic atomism, like pure atomism, holds that atoms are changeless and non-corruptible; they keep their being, constant and invariable, in all combinations.

Many atomists of the dynamistic school admit that force-endowed atoms will not explain the phenomena of life, at least of human life. These affirm the existence of an entelechy or soul which unites with certain atom-formed bodies to communicate activities of a superior nature. But, apart from a few Christians, these philosophers seem to make the life-principle an adjunct joined accidentally to the living body. We, on the contrary, hold that the life-principle, in every living body (plant, brute, man), is a substantial form which joins with matter to constitute the living body as a single if compound substance.

c) ESTIMATE OF ATOMISM

To say that natural bodies are made up of smaller bodies may be perfectly true, and may have a scientific value. But such a statement does not even start the philosopher upon his quest. The philosopher wants to know what a body is, and the small body sets him the same problem as the larger body of which it is a part. Hence no theory of atoms can be a philosophy. It still leaves unanswered the penetrating philosophical question, What makes a body a body? Thus, without going further, we may reject at once both types of atomism described above, and presented as an ultimate explanation of the universe.

In special, we may point out the following facts which render atomism inadmissible as a philosophy of the bodily world:

I. If all atoms are of the same nature (as atomists declare) it is impossible to explain a various universe. The world presents to our knowledge a great number of bodies that differ essentially, and these manifest properties and activities that are different and often opposite. Yet atoms which are all of one essential kind, and which retain their nature unimpaired in every collection, would constitute a world in which essential difference would be utterly impossible. Hence we say that atomism is to be rejected because it fails to account for the existence of essentially different bodies, and of bodies with essentially different properties.

2. Pure atomism holds that motion, externally applied, gathers atoms into collections that make up all the various bodies of the world. There is, however, much to contradict this simple statement. Take the one instance of chemical affinity, which every scientist, even the tyro, recognizes as a palpable fact.

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By force of this affinity certain bodies are drawn into combination with certain other bodies; and this in a constant manner, and according to fixed and definite proportions of the bodies in question. But if pure atomism were true, any body would combine with any other, and we could not observe any special affinities or note their precise requirements. Further, pure atomism contradicts itself in saying that bodies have no forces or powers of their own, for it teaches that atoms cannot be divided, that they are indestructible. Now, this is only saying that atoms resist division, and such resistance is a force or power. It cannot be retorted that this is no special power, but only a phase of being, since being stands opposed to non-being by the fact of actuality or existence. No, for there is here no question of being, but only of the quantity of atoms. Quantity does not perish when it is divided; the total quantity is the same in the undivided body and in the sum of its divided parts. And to say that atoms resist division of their quantity is to say much more than that they hold on to their being. It is to assert a force or power in atoms, which, by the terms of pure atomism, can have no force or power. In a word, it is a neat sel f-contradiction. Now, a self-contradictory system cannot be accepted as a sound philosophy.

3. Dynamistic atomism, admitting some indwelling force or power in atoms, keeps this a definitely mechanical power, that is, the power of local movement. But there are many things in the world (apart from the activities of living things) which mere local movement is powerless to explain. Light, electricity, radioactivity, affinities, are things which involve mechanical action or local movement, but which have, over and above, characteristics which are altogether unexplained when local motion has had its full hearing. SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

In this Article we have defined atomism, and have made a clear distinction between the scientific theory of atoms, or the atomic theory, and atomism or the atomistic philosophy. We have distinguished two types of atomism, pure or mechanistic atomism and dynamistic atomism. We have found both types inadmissible because they leave the philosophical problem of the bodily world not only unsolved but unattacked. Moreover, we have found in both types of atomism inadequacies of explanation and selfcontradiction of doctrine.