372 Mr. Thillips*s Analysis of Tartarized Antimony. fMxY, 



physical changes. We universally obserye a tendency in nature 

 to avoid a multiplicity of causes, and to produce a variety of 

 different effects by the intervention of one and the same cause 

 differently modified. In strict conformity with this principle, 

 the explanation I have attempted indicates a beautiful extension 

 of the great law of latent heat, long since so successfully applied 

 to the investigation of the different states in which matter exists, 

 and to the phenomena of the combination and separation of 

 different forms of matter ; and if any agent or principle in nature 

 should exhibit phenomena exactly analogous to those presented 

 by the changes of ordinary matter in relation to heat, we may 

 without impropriety describe such phenomena by analogous 

 terms, and speak of the absorbing or giving out of latent heat by 

 such agents, without assuming any particular hypothesis respect- 

 ing their materiahty. The observance of such analogies holding 

 good with these agents or principles, would, however, be so far 

 a presumption in favour of their materiality. 



We have become acquainted with matter in three different 

 forms, or states, solids, Hquids, and gases : but there is nothing 

 in nature to prevent the supposition that there may be other 

 states in which matter is capable of existing, which may form 

 an extension of this series at either end, and owe their differ- 

 ence to the same cause, viz. the possessing or losing a certain 

 quantity of latent heat. 



May not then light be one of such forms of matter ? a term in 

 the series occupying a place beyond gaseous bodies (though not 

 necessarily next to them), and owing its peculiar form to the 

 absorption of a certain quantity of latent heat. 



It would be easy to go on without limit in noticing the analo- 

 gies which might be found between the properties of elastic 

 fluids and those which might belong to an order of bodies beyond 

 them in the scale of latent heat ; but upon these speculations I 

 forbear entering. That the analogy holds good in respect to 

 latent heat is all that I am now concerned to maintain ; and this, 

 I think, has been fully made to appear ftom experimental deduc- 

 tion. 



Article VI. 



Analysis of Tartarized Antimony. By R. Phillips, FRSL. & E 



According to Dr. Paris (Pharmacologia, vol. ii. p. 64), this 

 "saline body was first made known by Adrian de Mynsicht in hi? 

 Thesaurus Medico-Chy?nicus, published in 1631 ; although it 

 appears probable that the preparation was suggested by a trea- 

 tise, entitled ' Methodus in Pulverem,' published in Italy in 

 1620." Long as this medicine has been employed, no regular 

 analysis of it, as far as I can learn, was attempted until 1801, 



