ABSTRACT
The hypothesis not only made it possible readily to explain Gay-Lussac's results, but also provided a method of finding true molecular formulae without arbitrary simplicity rules. In the formation of water, the oxygen molecule is divided into two, as the people saw; and Avogadro allowed that some molecules might be larger, and capable of further division. There was no longer any need for arbitrary rules, nor for wholly empirical laws known to have an open class of exceptions; and it began to be much more reasonable to think of formulae as representing atomic structures. It is therefore surprising to discover that in 1867 and 1869 the Chemical Society in London had two great debates upon the subject, in which the atomists came off worse.
