There is
in this a coincidence which has also been utilized in the preceding
thermodynamic calculations. It may be purely fortuitous, but we can
hardly refrain from finding in it a physical meaning.
Professor Van t'Hoff has considered this coincidence a demonstration
that there exists a strong analogy between a body in solution and a
gas; as a matter of fact, it may seem that, in a solution, the
distance between the molecules becomes comparable to the molecular
distances met with in gases, and that the molecule acquires the same
degree of liberty and the same simplicity in both phenomena. In that
case it seems probable that solutions will be subject to laws
independent of the chemical nature of the dissolved molecule and
comparable to the laws governing gases, while if we adopt the kinetic
image for the gas, we shall be led to represent to ourselves in a
similar way the phenomena which manifest themselves in a solution.
Osmotic pressure will then appear to be due to the shock of the
dissolved molecules against the membrane.
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