DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 99 



cules move freely in all directions in- 

 dependent of each other. 



Similarly, heat influences the atoms 

 of which the molecules are composed. 

 Even chemical attraction gives way to 

 heat so that all bodies at sufficient 

 temperature are decomposed into free 

 atoms or elementary constituents. 



We have seen that heat performs 

 mechanical work in so far as it sep- 

 arates masses from each other. But 

 heat not only performs this work but 

 is the work itself, or is identical with 

 the movement of these particles. 



Consequently a certain quantity of 

 mechanical work is equivalent to a 

 certain quantity of heat and vice versa, 

 and it is this transformation from one 

 form of energy into another that takes 

 place during a chemical reaction. The 

 mechanical energy of the atoms is here 

 converted into heat which may again 

 be used for the other forms of mechan- 

 ical activity. Through the chemical re- 

 action that heat is regained which pre- 

 viously was utilized in separating the 



