B58 Nature of Caloric. 
be were temperature merely the operation of a law of motion, 
but the water is affected too little, and the mercury too much 
to admit of our referring the change to such a law. Little 
as I am disposed to adopt the views of Sir Humphrey Davy, 
I cannot but think that Dr. Hare has here suggested an an- 
swer which is not altogether unobjectionable. The applica- 
tion of his rule, or test, makes it necessary to suppose, that 
the particles subjected to impact, are all moving in the same 
direction—that they all actually come into collision, each up- 
on each, and that they are non-elastic ; none of which con- 
ditions are capable of being proved actually to exist, although 
it is only when they are all present, that the law of motion 
which he adduces holds true. Moreover, if Dr. Hare be al- 
lowed to have fully and clearly refuted the hypothesis of Sir 
Humphrey, his argument is still imperfect; for it by no 
means establishes the doctrine of the materiality of heat, to 
prove that Davy has failed of showing that it is a product 0 
motion. Both parties, in my view, evince how idle it is to 
reason respecting chemical phenomena upon mechanical prin- 
ments which the science has received, either in the investiga- 
on © the disco 
tion of new principles, or in ew su 
ex ’ er 
(To be continued.) 
