320 RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



cal properties of the elements about us, offer 

 themselves to our notice. The relations of heat 

 and of moisture in particular, which play so im- 

 portant a part, as we have seen, in the economy 

 of our world, have been the subject of various 

 researches ; and they have led to views of the 

 operation of such agents, some of which we have 

 endeavoured to present to the reader, and to 

 point out the remarkable arrangements by which 

 their beneficial operation is carried on. That the 

 discoverers of the laws by which such operations 

 are regulated, were not insensible to the persua- 

 sion of a Divine care and contrivance which those 

 arrangements suggest, is what we should expect, 

 in agreement with what we have already said, 

 and it is what we find. Among the names of the 

 philosophers to whom we owe our knowledge on 

 these subjects, there are none greater than those 

 of Black, the discoverer of the laws of latent 

 heat, and Dalton, who first gave us a true view 

 of the mode in which watery vapour exists 

 and operates in the atmosphere. With regard 

 to the former of these philosophers, we shall 

 quote Dr. Thomson's account of the views 

 which the laws of latent heat suggested to the 

 discoverer.* " Dr. Black quickly perceived the 

 vast importance of this discovery, and took a 

 pleasure in laying before his students a view of 



* Thomson's Hist, of Chemistry, vol. i. 321. 



