PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY. 143 



take place in unorganized matters, by which organized nature 

 is supported, and we have plausible reasons to conjecture, that 

 a similar disposition prevails in the other parts of the immen- 

 sity of the universe. 



The circumstances which incessantly tend to destroy or to because pre- 

 prevent the repose of combined elements, are light, caloric, and h> r " c jjght, and 

 electricity, assisted by the circumstance that the chemical electricity, 

 affinity of the different elementary bodies is not equally strong. 



Caloric, light, and electricity, have a mutual relation with each These have a 

 other" j easy to be perceived, but very difficult to be compre- ™" n "* 

 bended. Very often the presence of one of these produces the 

 other, without one being capable of determining whence it 

 comes. When a large and powerful electrical pile is dis- 

 charged by means of two points of platina, a sun is produced The union of 

 at the point of discharge ; indeed upon a scale of infinite mi- l^"^"^ 

 nuteness as to magnitude, but which, by the intensity of its and heat, 

 light and heat, surpasses every other phenomenon of fire pro- 

 duced upon one globe ; which fuses the metal, and loses nothing 

 by the comparison, even - " when produced in the midst of a' 

 flame, supported by oxigen gas. The production of light and 

 heat at the point of the electric discharge j that is to say, at the 

 point where the two separated electricities it cease to manifest 

 themselves as electricity, cannot be mistaken ; and proves, that 

 there is a relation between these substances, which we may, per- 

 haps, hereafter be better able to comprehend than at present. 



Caloric and the electricities exhibit, in our experiments, a Tendencies t« 



kind of tendency to acquire an equilibrium: that is to say, to equilibrium of 

 r .-, .... caloric and e- 



arnve at the same state of repose, which appears to be the ulti- lectricity, 



mate end of the chemical affinity of ponderable matter. But 

 this equilibrium of caloric and the electricities is incessantly 

 broken by the rays of the sun, by which the surfaces of the 

 planetary bodies is alternately enlightened at determinate inter- 

 vals. 



There is therefore a process carried on in the sun, by which which is di*- 

 the repose of the united elements is incessantly intercepted or |of ar e Ji Eft i 

 prevented, and which preserves them in a certain state of 

 activity. It is impossible for us to determine the nature of 

 this process ; because the truth of on rconjectures will never, 

 in all probability, be proved in a satisfactory manner; but, not- 

 withstanding the difficulty; it will always be a subject of interest 



to 



