Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/246

222 result of a vibratory movement of the ethereal fluid. Light produces heat, or at least accompanies the radiating heat, and moves with the same velocity as heat. Radiating heat is then a vibratory movement. It would be ridiculous to suppose that it is an emission of matter while the light which accompanies it could be only a movement.

Could a motion (that of radiating heat) produce matter (caloric)?

No, undoubtedly; it can only produce a motion. Heat is then the result of a motion.

Then it is plain that it could be produced by the consumption of motive power, and that it could produce this power.

All the other phenomena—composition and decomposition of bodies, passage to the gaseous state, specific heat, equilibrium of heat, its more or less easy transmission, its constancy in experiments with the calorimeter—could be explained by this hypothesis. But it would be difficult to explain why, in the development of motive power by heat, a cold body is necessary; why, in consuming the heat of a warm body, motion cannot be produced.

It appears very difficult to penetrate into the real essence of bodies. To avoid erroneous reasoning, it would be necessary to investigate carefully