Page:Theory of Heat, James Clerk Maxwell, Fourth Edition.djvu/17



between hot bodies and cold ones is familiar to all, and is associated in our minds with the difference of the sensations.which we experience in touching various substances, according as they are hot or cold. The intensity of these sensations is susceptible of degrees, so that we may estimate one body to be hotter or colder than another by the touch. The words hot, warm, cool, cold, are associated in our minds with a series of sensations which we suppose to indicate a corresponding series of states of an object with respect to heat.

We use these words, therefore, as the names of these states of the object, or, in scientific language, they are the names of Temperatures, the word hot indicating a high temperature, cold a low temperature, and the intermediate terms intermediate temperatures, while the word temperature itself is a general term intended to apply to any one of these states of the object.

Since the state of a body may vary continuously from cold to hot, we must admit the existence of an indefinite number of intermediate states, which we call intermediate Rh