160 COUNT RUMFORD. 



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.' Eepeated 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 before and during crystallisation. The condi- 

 tions necessary to the life of our planet must have ex- 

 isted before life appeared ; but whether those conditions 

 had prospective reference to life, or whether its im- 

 manent 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 

 caution. His conclusion from his experiments was that, 

 if heat be a substance — a fluid sui generis — it must be 

 something so infinitely rare, even in its condensed state, 

 as to baffle all our attempts to discover its gravity, 



