loo Count Rum ford’s Inquiry concerning 
enlightened philosophers have endeavoured, but in vain, to 
comprehend. 
But, although the mechanism of heat should, in fact, be 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 in- 
teresting, 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 sub- 
lime 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 im- 
mutable. 
Before I finish this paper, I would beg leave to observe, 
that although, in treating the subject I have endeavoured 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 of their labours ; this omission has not been owing to 
any want of respect for my predecessors, but was merely to 
avoid prolixity, and to be more at liberty to pursue, without 
interruption, the natural train of my own ideas. 
