COUNT RUMFORD. 145 



written, the man who, in opposition to the scientific 

 belief of his time, could experiment, and reason upon 

 experiment, as did Eumford in the investigation here 

 referred to, cannot be lightly passed over." ' In my 

 opinion, the most dignified and impressive way of 

 dealing with labours like those of Rumford, is to show 

 by simple quotations, well selected, what their merits 

 are. This I did in the book referred to by Dr. Ellis, 

 which was published at least eight years in advance of 

 his. But the expression of my admiration for Rum- 

 ford was not confined to the passage above-quoted, 

 which is taken from the appendix to one of my lec- 

 tures. In that lecture I drew attention to Rumford's 

 labours in the following words : — 6 1 have particular 

 pleasure in directing the reader's attention to an ab- 

 stract of Count Rumford's memoir on the generation 

 of heat by friction, contained in the appendix to this 

 lecture. Rumford in this memoir annihilates the mate- 

 rial theory of heat. Nothing more powerful on the 

 subject has since been written.' 



But I must not go too far, nor suffer myself to dwell 

 with one-sided exclusiveness upon the merits of Rum- 

 ford. The theoretic conceptions with which he dealt 

 were not his conceptions, but had been the property of 

 science long prior to his day. This, I fear, was for- 

 gotten when the following claim for Rumford was made 

 by a writer who has done excellent service in diffusing 

 sound science among the people of the United States : l — 

 ' He was the man who first took the question of the 

 nature of heat out of the domain of metaphysics, where 

 it had been speculated upon since the time of Aristotle, 

 and placed it upon the true basis of physical experi- 

 ment.' The writer of this passage could hardly, when 



1 The late Dr. Youmans. 



