Page:Aether and Matter, 1900.djvu/229

of a configuration of minimum energy in the molecule in fact implies finite structure in the nuclei in some such way. At the same time the Michelson interference-result indicates that these other agencies play a quite subordinate part in our present problems: for the correlation above established, which involves that result, only holds strictly for electrons whose nuclei are considered as mere points in comparison with their mutual distances. Atomic inertia other than that which comes from the aether in some way it seems impossible to conceive: but in other respects we are hardly on the threshold of the structure of the atom. The problem there involved is not to assign a structure so minutely definite that it will include the whole complex of chemical actions, but rather to ascertain how much must be postulated in order to correlate the main features of those universal agencies, affecting all kinds of matter, with which the theoretical side of physical science deals.