stopped for a single atom, the atom disappears; there is nothing left.
Presumably, were that flow checked but for an instant, the whole physical
world would vanish, as a cloud melts away in the empyrean. It is only the
persistence of that flow[7] which maintains the physical basis of the
universe.[8]

In order to examine the construction of the atom, a space is artificially
made[9]; then, if an opening be made in the wall thus constructed, the
surrounding force flows in, and three whorls immediately appear,
surrounding the "hole" with their triple spiral of two and a half coils,
and returning to their origin by a spiral within the atom; these are at
once followed by seven finer whorls, which following the spiral of the
first three on the outer surface, and returning to their origin by a spiral
within that, flowing in the opposite direction--form a caduceus with the
first three. Each of the three coarser whorls, flattened out, makes a
closed circle; each of the seven finer ones, similarly flattened out, makes
a closed circle. The forces which flow in them, again, come from "outside,"
from a fourth-dimensional space.[10] Each of the finer whorls is formed of
seven yet finer ones, set successively at right angles to each other, each
finer than its predecessor; these we call spirillæ.[11]

It will be understood from the foregoing, that the atom cannot be said to
have a wall of its own, unless these whorls of force can be so designated;
its "wall" is the pressed back "space." As said in 1895, of the chemical
atom, the force "clears itself a space, pressing back the undifferentiated
matter of the plane, and making to itself a whirling wall of this matter."
The wall belongs to space, not to the atom.

In the three whorls flow currents of different electricities; the seven
vibrate in response to etheric waves of all kinds--to sound, light, heat,