COEXISTENCES INDEPENDENT OF CAUSATION. 123 



however, has for its cause the presence of a certain 

 quantity of latent heat; and if that heat could be taken 

 away (as has been done from so many gases in Mr. 

 Faraday's experiments), the gaseous form would 

 doubtless disappear, together with numerous other 

 properties which depend upon, or are caused by, that 

 property. 



In regard to all substances which are chemical 

 compounds, and which therefore may be regarded 

 as products of the juxta-position of substances dif- 

 ferent in Kind from themselves, there is considerable 

 reason to presume that the specific properties of the 

 compound are consequent, as effects, upon some of 

 the properties of the elements, although but little 

 progress has yet been made in tracing any invariable 

 relation between the latter and the former. Still more 

 strongly will a similar presumption exist, when the 

 object itself, as in the case of organized beings, is no 

 primeval agent, but an effect, which depends upon a 

 cause or causes for its very existence. The Kinds 

 therefore which are called in chemistry simple sub- 

 stances, or elementary natural agents, are the only 

 ones, any of whose properties can with certainty be 

 considered ultimate; and of these the ultimate pro- 

 perties are probably much more numerous than we at 

 present recognise, since every successful instance of 

 the resolution of the properties of their compounds 

 into simpler laws, generally leads to the recognition 

 of properties in the elements distinct from any pre- 

 viously known. The resolution of the laws of the 

 heavenly motions, established the previously unknown 

 ultimate property of a mutual attraction between all 

 bodies: the resolution, so far as it has yet proceeded, 

 of the laws of crystallization, of chemical composition, 

 electricity, magnetism, &c., points to various pola- 



