228 Matter A tive. [March, 
should vve suppose a new law for a molecule, making a 
simple body do complex work ? 
John Dalton. — Allowing this argument to have some force, 
I cannot look on it as a final proof, and, even if it were, it 
is not any proof whatever that the original substance from 
which these atoms, as I call them, may have been made is 
the same for all ; we may make our wheels of wood, iron, 
or brass. 
Roger Bacon. — True ; but all the organisations of plants 
and animals are made of the same materials, and it would 
appear that the organisations of the universe are also made 
of the same substances as the earth. If we seek a more 
simple substance, we may be satisfied that the same will do 
for all. There seems an analogy between your atom and a 
mechanism, and for my part I look on all the molecules of 
the elements as little heat engines ; they do nothing until 
they are driven. This seems at least to apply to their 
chemical qualities. Interrupt a fly-wheel, and we have 
friction and heat ; interrupt a molecule by some other mole- 
cule with which it combines, and we have heat also, and a 
stoppage of its ordinary motion ; work in this case is done, 
and this work is the fabrication of a new product, a faCture 
by the hands of Nature — a manufacture. 
John Dalton. — I could agree to this faCture, as you call it, 
in a sense ; but are you not simply going back a stage to 
meet the difficulty as great as ever ? If you make the 
usually received atoms of Newton to combine, do you not 
really do enough, giving them at their origin characteristics 
now found impressed on them by Nature ? 
Roger Bacon. — I imagined that an answer had been given 
to this : if we do so we make a great many compound bodies 
as the aCt of the first creation, and I might as well say 
why not suppose all the compound rocks to be made at 
once ? why not allow the fossils to be the result of “ a 
striving of inorganic nature after organic forms ” ? why do 
not all men rise ready grown or made from the red earth ? 
This does not seem to be the will of Nature in any of the 
departments we have observed ; it is unfair to suppose it in 
the small masses we speak of. This is an argument of pro- 
bability, the compound character of your atom is an argu- 
ment of faCt, to my mind. 
John Dalton. — You have quite forgotten one point. The 
atoms are not dependent on heat ; they have the power of 
making it. They all gravitate, whether hot or cold, and if 
they were only allowed space they would rush together and 
produce heat in abundance, to give scope for all their 
chemical activities. 
