ABSTRACT
Fiction is merely a more conscious, "lore practical and more fruitful error. The form of the atomic fiction is that matter must be treated as it would be, if there were atoms of which it was imagined to be composed. In the if lies the assumption of a condition, and indeed, in this instance, of an impossible case. In this complex of particles there lies, in fact, the whole process of thought proper to a fiction. The form of the atomic fiction is that matter must be treated as it would be, if there were atoms of which it was imagined to be composed. The form of the hypothesis connected with this assumption runs thus: only on the presupposition that atoms exist and only if they do exist, can the empirical appearance of material phenomena be explained. In spite of the occasional ambiguity of language, the grammatical difference between fiction and hypothesis is very remarkable.
