[ 4°6 ] 
to me fufceptible of humidity, but by altering their 
nature, I relu&antly perceived that I fhould be 
obliged to look for my firft point, where I had the 
lead hopes of difcovering it. 
6. I remained a long time without difcovering 
any thing in this new road ; and very often turned 
back, but was always obliged to return to extreme 
humidity, as to the only part of my objeft, of which 
1 could poffibly get any hold. 
7. The words, which are neceffary for commu- 
nicating our ideas to others, are often obftacles to the 
railing of new ideas in ourfelves. They are by far 
too few to exprefs diftindtly every fhade of intellec- 
tual objects. Humidity was a word which I con- 
ftantly repeated to myfelf, and it conftantly led me 
to a clafs of phasnomena, in which I could find no- 
thing fettled. 
8. Water at length prefented itfelf to my mind ; 
and in this fluid, which to all appearance ought firft 
to have {truck me, I beheld with furprize, what I 
had been labouring, through many a round, to difco- 
ver, under the denomination of extreme humidity. I 
was not at that time confidering humidity in any 
particular phasnomenon ; I only obferved that it was- 
conftantly produced by aqueous particles difleminated 
through bodies ; and I found in water the maximum 
of the approach, and confequently of the action, of 
thefe particles. 
9. In order now to avoid the ambiguities from 
whence, in my opinion, the difficulties in thefe mat- 
ters arife, let me be allowed for the future to employ 
no words but fuch whofe meaning is well deter- - 
■mined. Humidity will accordingly be no more 
