CHAPTER XVII, 



ON THE MATTER OF TEMPERATURE IN GENERAL, 

 AND OF REFRIGERATION IN PARTICULAR. 



IT is to be lamented that the English have con- 

 ceded to the French chemists, the term by which 

 that matter is designated and known, which 

 has the power of exciting the sensation of heat 

 or warmth to animated beings in general, and 

 of expanding common matter in particular ; and 

 both, I conceive, are blameable for having 

 changed the word fire, feu, for that of caloric. 

 Feu, like fire, is the abstract word, expressive 

 of the abstract thing ; whereas the word caloric* 

 by conveying with it the idea of chaleur, which 

 in English means heat or warmth, would rather 

 seem to confound together the sensation which 

 is felt, with the substance by which the sensa- 

 tion is excited, as if both subsisted in one and 

 the same subject. The Romans preserved the 

 distinction between both ; between ignis or fire. 



