COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



The molecules of carbon and oxygen, which 

 will not unite when simply brought into juxta- 

 position, nevertheless begin rapidly to unite as 

 soon as their rates of undulation are heightened 

 by the intense heat of the match. In like man- 

 ner the phosphoric compound with which the 

 end of the match is equipped refuses to take 

 up molecules of atmospheric oxygen until its 

 own molecules receive an increment of motion 

 supplied by the arrested molar motion of the 

 match along a rough surface. So oxygen and 

 hydrogen do not combine when they are simply 

 mingled together in the same vessel ; but when 

 sufficiently heated they explode and unite to 

 form steam. In these, and in many other cases, 

 a certain amount of heat causes substances to 

 enter into chemical union. But it is none the 

 less true that an enormous supply of heat im- 

 plies such violent molecular undulation as to 

 render chemical union impossible. Since the 

 mode of attractive force known as chemism acts 

 only at infinitesimal distances, the increase of 

 thermal undulation, which at first only causes 

 such a molecular rearrangement as to allow mu- 

 tually attracting molecules to rush together, 

 must at last cause such a separation of particles 

 that chemism will be unable to act. This infer- 

 ence from known laws of heat is fully verified 

 by experiment in the case of all those com- 

 pounds which we can decompose by such ther- 

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