 As one could surmise from the author of Nanna and Zend-Avesta, Fechner was not sympathetic to materialism and lamented its rising power in German life and letters. It was one of the most interesting features of his book that it would attempt to break the traditional association of atomism with materialism. Fechner argued that atomism does not necessarily support materialism, and that it is indeed ultimately a better support for the beliefs in the existence of God and immortality than the opposing view of the philosophers. Part I of Atomlehre lays out the experimental evidence for physical atomism; but Part II states the case for a philosophical atomism which supports a metaphysics avowing the existence of God and immortality. The battle between philosophy and physics about the existence of the atom should not be seen, at least in Fechner’s view, as a struggle between faith and science. 