Noiices respecUtig Ne'w Books. 217 



speculations of the wildest nature, although it must be confessed 

 that he has infused an interest into them which might almost be 

 called dramatic. They are certainlj^ Iiighly characteristic of that 

 enlightened fancy, which was perpetually on the wing, and whose 

 flight, when afterwards tempered and directed by judgement, en- 

 abled him to abstract the richest treasures from the recesses of 

 abstract truth." 



" Taking it for granted that caloric has no existence as a ma- 

 terial body, or, in other words that the phsenomena of repulsion do 

 not depend upon the agency of a peculiar fluid, and that on the 

 contrary, light is a subtile fluid acting on our organs of vision 

 onl^ vohen in a state of repulsive jwojection ; he proceeds to examine 

 the French theory of combustion ; the defects of which he con- 

 siders to arise from the assumption of the imaginary fluid caloric^ 

 and the total neglect oi light. He conceives that the light evolved 

 during combustion previously existed in the oxygen gas, which he 

 therefore proposes for the future to call Phos-oxygen." 



" In following up this question, he would seem to consider light as 

 the Anima Mundi, diffusing through the universe not only organi- 

 zation, but even animation and perception." 



" Plios-oxygen, he considers as capable of combining with addi- 

 tional projjortions of light, and of thus becoming ^ luminafed j)hos- 

 oxygen!' From the decomposition of which, and the consequent 

 liberation of light, he seeks to explain many of the most recondite 

 phsenomena of nature." 



" We cannot but admire the eagerness with which he enlists 

 known facts into his service, and the boldness with which he ranges 

 the wilds of creation in search of analogies for the support and il- 

 lustration of his views. He imagines that the phos-oxygen when 

 thus luminntcd, must necessarily have its specific gravity consider- 

 ably diminished by the combination, and that it will therefore oc- 

 cupy the higher regions of the atmosphere; hence, he says, it is 

 that combustion takes place at the tops of mountains at a lower 

 temperature than in the plains, and with a greater liberation of light. 

 The hydrogen which is disengaged from the surface of the earth, 

 he supposes will rise until it comes into contact with this laminated 



fJios-oxygen, when by its attracting the oxygen to form water, the 

 ight will be set free, and give origin to the phaenomena of fiery 

 meteors at a great altitude." 



•' The phaenomena termed ' Phosphorescence,' or that luminous 

 appearance which certain bodies exhibit after exposure to heat, is 

 attributed by this theory to the light, which may be supposed to 

 quit such substances as soon as its particles have acquired repulsive 

 motion by elevation of temperature." — " The electric fluid is con- 

 sidered as light in a condensed state, or, in other words, in that 

 peculiar state in which it is not supplied with a repulsive motion 

 sufficiently energetic to impart projection to its particles; for he 

 observes, that its chemical action upon bodies is similar to that of 

 light; and when supplied with repulsive motion by friction, or by 

 the contact of bodies from which it is capable of subtracting it, it 

 N.S. Vol. 10. No. 57. ScjjL 1831. '2 V loses 



