STUDIES IN NATURE 



reason why we should think the same thing to 

 be both hot and cold when it is really all at the 

 same temperature ? 



Let us consider the three cases we have 

 taken a little more fully, and see if we can find 

 out some explanation. In the first place there 

 is certainly a great difference between stone and 

 metal on the one hand, and the material out of 

 which we make curtains or carpets. A brass 

 fender before a fire may soon become so hot 

 that we cannot touch it ; we put a blanket over 

 the fender and can touch it easily even though 

 it is almost beginning to scorch. All the various 

 sorts of stone and metal, marble, concrete, iron, 

 silver, brass, feel cold to touch if they are cold, 

 and seem almost to burn us when they are 

 hot, while wood, flannel, wool, cotton, and such 

 things, may be almost on fire before they become 

 too hot to handle. Now these two sets of things 

 are very different in many ways, and have very 

 different properties, as we all know, and it is 

 because of their differences in one particular 

 way that we have these different feelings about 

 them. 



In order to find out which particular pro- 

 perty is connected with this difference in our 

 sensations when we touch different bodies at the 

 same temperature, we must examine the bodies, 

 and try to discover some one property which is 

 possessed by all those which affect our senses 

 in the same way. It will then be likely that this 



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