Vital Physics. 59 



particle equally repels its neighbour from the rapid 

 appropriation of caloric or the repellent force on its 

 surface, whereby each particle is freely separated at equal 

 distances from its neighbouring particles throughout the 

 entire gaseous mass. 



When hydrogen is gaseous, free caloric or positive heat is 

 appropriated, so that the caloric between particle and par- 

 ticle is entirely appropriated to the one function of repulsion 

 between particle and particle. 



Hence, caloric is fixed and constant in each element, and 

 each atom pertaining to such element, cceteris paribus ; yet 

 when not so conditioned the separate elements are, accord- 

 ing to the conditions under which they are placed, 

 proportionally susceptible to the influence of caloric, under 

 one condition appropriating much caloric, and under another 

 yielding up the amount of caloric previously held, as 

 condensation either from pressure or chemical action ; the 

 chief disturbing agent to the attractive fluid being the 

 variable proportion in which caloric can be entertained or 

 appropriated by all kinds of atoms, whether appropriated 

 centrally or superficially by any particular kind of atoms. 

 The amount of appropriation of caloric is variable, according 

 to changes in external conditions, but constant under like 

 conditions in like atoms. 



Again, a more difficult subject remains to be examined as 

 illustrative of a type, namely, a compound radical, or, for 

 the sake of precision, a " molecule," the word molecule 

 being here used to denote a compound of affixed proportions. 

 The compound radical or molecule, selected merely as by 

 accident, falls upon the alkaloid strychnia a vegetable 

 molecule, the proportion of whose atoms is as follows : 



Carbon 21, Hydrogen 22, Nitrogen 2, Oxygen 2. 

 The several atoms of C, H, N, O, combined in a fixed 



