  Ostwald and Mach clearly resisted the atomic view of matter (although for different reasons). Boltzmann certainly defended and promoted this view. But he was not the naive realist or unabashed believer in the existence of atoms that the more popular literature has made of him. Instead, he stressed from the 1880s onwards that the atomic view yielded at best an analogy, or a picture or model of reality (cf. de Regt 1999).  In his debate with Mach he advocated (1897c, 1897d) this approach as a useful or economical way to understand the thermal behavior of gases. This means that his views were quite compatible with Mach's views on the goal of   science.[2]  What divided them was more a strategic issue. Boltzmann claimed that no approach in natural science that avoids hypotheses completely could ever succeed. He argued that those who reject the atomic hypothesis in favor of a continuum view of matter were guilty of adopting hypotheses too. Ultimately, the choice between such views should depend on their fruitfulness, and here Boltzmann had no doubt that the atomic hypothesis would be  more  successful.[3]