Physical Facts 1; Crystalline Form
Statement of the fact; Many bodies when they pass, slowly and guarded from all disturbing influences, from a liquid or gaseous state to a solid state assume geometric forms.
They are then said to be crystallized.
In point of fact the regularity which the plane surfaces of a crystal present is only a sensible manifestation of an internal and invisible regularity which governs the orientation and distribution of the crystalline matter.
What is most interesting among crystallographic phenomena is the law enunciated by Abbé Hauy:
"Bodies of the same chemical composition have the same crystalline form, bodies of different composition have a different crystalline form.*
This molecule which is often called the crystalline embryo, is a very complex structure, made up of a great many chemical molecules.
Whatever the determined number of elements which constitute the crystalline molecule, it is well ascertained that these elements are arranged in fixed directions and in an order characteristic of each body.
Hence it is necessary that a governing principle should direct the arrangement of the molecules within the crystalline polyhedron by fixing their number and eventually determining their mode of union.
Now the motion of homogeneous particles, deprived by Mechanists of any inherent tendency towards a determined end and of any element of finality is manifestly incapable of producing this harmonious convergence of the manifold constituent parts of the crystalline molecule and cannot give it, with mathematical precision, its specific form.
The order which we find realized in these extremely minute particles of matter is one that is stable, complex and distinctive of the species.
The reasons put forward by Mechanism leave both the specific
nature of the phenomenon and its consistency alike unexplained.
Physical Facts 2
Statement of Physical facts, and Criticism of the Mechanical Method:
From the study of physical phenomena there follows a general conclusion with it is important to describe, namely that all bodies of nature are distinguished by a collection of properties that give them a definite place in the scale of beings.
Natural state, density, crystalline form, properties relating to sound, heat, light, density, magnetism and electricity are all so many criteria of differentiation at the disposal of the physicist.
Secondly, a fact which is no less remarkable is that of the invariable recurrence of these physical species throughout the incessant transformations of matter.
The same bodies ever re-appear with the same group of properties, a group so well determined that it is enough for a physicist well-versed in the study of matter to know only a single one of these properties in order to give a complete description of the species to which it belongs.
Thirdly, although these properties are independent of each other and are therefore each capable of receiving separate modifications, they are always to be found united in an indissoluble group in which each of them, either by its degree of intensity or by its conditions of activity or by other distinctive characteristics, appears as a visible manifestation of the corporeal nature of which it is the property.
Does Mechanism explain this threefold fact?
It seems unable to do so. This connexion which invariably associates a given group of properties with a determined substance finds no explanation in the hypothesis of homogeneous matter.
Either matter should always and everywhere manifest the same exigencies, or its should show itself indifferent to receiving one group of accidental qualities rather than another.
In the latter case there is nothing to prevent the same substance, e.g. hydrogen, from assuming successively the properties of nitrogen, carbon or of any other body whatever.
In the former case, it is equally difficult to see why
a given body should always possess a given group of properties in preference
to any other, since the homogeneity of matter is incompatible with specific
exigencies.