160 COUNT RUMFORD. 



water lake within the polar circle to a vast depth, " and 

 it is more than probable that the regions of eternal frost 

 would have spread on every side from the poles, and, ad- 

 vancing towards the equator, would have extended its 

 dreary and solitary reign over a great part of what are 

 now the most fertile and most inhabited climates of the 

 world ! " He expands this thesis in various directions, 

 the whole argument being based on the assumption that 

 " all bodies are condensed by cold, without limitation, 

 WATER ONLY EXCEPTED." Repeated disappointments in 

 such matters have taught us caution. Legitimate 

 grounds for wonder exist everywhere around us; but 

 wonder must not be cultivated at the expense of truth. 

 Brought to the proper test, the assumption on which 

 Rumford built his striking teleological argument is 

 found to be a mere quicksand. The fact he adduces 

 as unique is not an exception to a universal law. There 

 are other substances, to which his reasoning has not 

 the remotest application, which, like water, expand be- 

 fore and during crystallisation. The conditions neces- 

 sary to the life of our planet must have existed before 

 life appeared; but whether those conditions had pros- 

 pective reference to life, or whether its immanent energy 

 did not seize upon conditions which grew into being 

 without any reference to life, we do not know; and it 

 would be mere arrogance at the present day to dogmatise 

 upon the subject. 



In the controversy whether heat was a form of 

 matter or a form of motion, Rumford espoused the 

 latter view. Now those who supposed heat to be matter 

 naturally thought that it might be ponderable, and ex- 

 periments favourable to this notion had been executed. 

 Operating with a balance of extreme delicacy, Rumford 

 took up this question, and treated it with great skill and 



