1 68 Reflections on Heat. 



far from considering the existence of this substance as 

 proved, always speak of it with that modest reserve 

 which characterizes men of superior excellence. They 

 propose the word in order to avoid circumlocutions 

 and to render the language of science more concise, 

 rather than to introduce a new opinion. 



One of these philosophers, whom science and man- 

 kind still mourn, thus expresses himself in his ad- 

 mirable Traite Rlcmentaire de Chimie : "In the labours 

 which M. de Morveau, M. Berthollet, M. de Fourcroy, 

 and myself have performed in common on the reform 

 of the language of chemistry, we have felt that we ought 

 to banish from it those circumlocutions which render 

 the form of expression longer and more cumbersome, 

 less exact, and less clear, and which not seldom even do 

 not allow of ideas sufficiently well defined. We have, 

 therefore, designated the cause of heat, the eminently 

 elastic fluid which produces it, by the name caloric. In- 

 dependently of the fact that this expression answers our 

 purpose in the system which we have adopted, it has 

 besides another advantage, that of being able to adapt 

 itself to all sorts of opinions, since, strictly speaking, 

 we are not even obliged to suppose that caloric is a 

 material substance." 



If the point in question, the existence or non-exist- 

 ence of caloric, were less important we might be content 

 with leaving it undecided ; but the use of heat is so 

 general, and the art of exciting and directing it is so 

 intimately connected with the perfecting of all the me- 

 chanical arts and with a great number of domestic ap- 

 plications, that we cannot take too much trouble in 

 becoming acquainted with it. 



Without entering into the details of the various ex- 



