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What deep meaning there is, for example, in the idea that the infinitesimal calculus is a conception analogous to the corpuscular hypothesis in physics; which last M. Comte has always considered as a logical artifice; not an opinion respecting matters of fact. The assimilation, as it seems to us, throws a flood of light on both conceptions; on the physical one still more than the mathematical.
Common sense, common science or corpuscular philosophy, ultra-critical science, or energetics, and critical or idealistic philosophy, all seem insufficiently true in some regard and leave some dissatisfaction. It is evident that the conflict of these so widely differing systems obliges us to overhaul the very idea of truth, for at present we have no definite notion of what the word may mean.
"It seems at first sight," he said, "as ridiculous as though we should associate the theory of light with the name of Newton, who inclined to the exploded corpuscular hypothesis, or the general conception of orbital motion in the universe to the great Bacon, who, in point of fact, rudely repudiated the Copernican theory in particular." "Did he, indeed?" said I, interested.
Bacon combines in a peculiar manner ancient and modern, Platonic and corpuscular fundamental ideas.
It is a reasonable inference that the fourth state of matter, the corpuscular, is affiliated to some four-dimensional manner of extension, and that there may be states beyond this, involving even higher development of space. Next glance at the vegetable kingdom.
The best instances for the determination of this question are those in which two different explanations have been given of the same thing. The most celebrated case of this kind is that of the corpuscular and the undulatory theories of light. Up to a certain point the phenomena of light are equally well explained by both; beyond this point, one of them fails.
In like manner, all the processes of vegetative life, whether in the vegetable properly so called or in the animal body, are corpuscular processes. Nutrition is the addition of particles to one another, sometimes merely replacing other particles separated and excreted, sometimes occasioning an increase of bulk or weight so gradual that only after a long continuance does it become perceptible.
"So far from Nature not making jumps, it becomes doubtful if she does anything else." "The corpuscular theory of radiation is by no means so dead as in my youth we thought it was." "But I myself am an upholder of ultimate continuity, and a fervent believer in the aether of space."
The amount of corpuscular discharge from the sun must naturally be governed by the state of relative activity or inactivity of the latter, and this could not but be reflected in the varying splendor of the Zodiacal Light.
These need not detain us, since the important aspect of Needham's work relevant to our purpose is his continuation of the chemical analysis of the developing embryo and its demonstration that, although Harvey might have despised the "chymists" and been contemptuous of the "mechanical, corpuscular philosophy," this system and approach was not to be denied.
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