Life of Count Rumford. 483 



one of those mysteries of nature which are beyond the reach of 

 human intelligence, this ought by no means to discourage us, or 

 even lessen our ardour in our attempts to investigate the laws 

 of its operations. How far can we advance in any of the paths 

 which Science has opened to us before we find ourselves 

 enveloped in those thick mists which on every side bound the 

 horizon of the human intellect? But how ample and how 

 interesting is the field that is given us to explore ! 



" Nobody, surely, in his sober senses, has ever pretended to 

 understand the mechanism of gravitation ; and yet what sublime 

 discoveries was our immortal Newton enabled to make, merely 

 by the investigation of the laws of its action ! 



" The effects produced in the world by the agency of Heat 

 are probably just as extensive, and quite as important, as those 

 which are owing to the tendency of the particles of matter 

 towards each other ; and there is no doubt but its operations are 

 in all cases determined by laws equally immutable. 



" Before I finish this Essay, I would beg leave to observe, 

 that, although in treating the subject I have endeavored to 

 investigate I have made no mention of the names of those who 

 have gone over the same ground before me, nor of the success 



O O * 



of their labours, this omission has not been owing to any want 

 of respect for my predecessors, but was merely to avoid pro- 

 lixity, and to be more at liberty to pursue without interruption 

 the natural train of my own ideas." 



In reference to the frank avowal made in this last 

 paragraph, a passing notice may not be out of place 

 here, of two depreciatory articles upon .Count Rum- 

 ford's scientific merits in the Edinburgh Review, Vol. 

 IV. p. 399, etc. The articles which are ostensibly 

 critical notices of Rumford's papers concerning the 

 Nature of Heat, and concerning a <c Curious Phenom- 

 enon in the Glaciers of Chamouny," which he had 

 observed with his friend Pictet, are evidently strongly 

 imbued with jealousy and personal malignity. They 



