Curiosities of Heat

nature and laws of heat. They were not only interested in the new line of study, and desirous of pleasing Mr. Wilton,

on had taken away at one sweep a whole store of objections to God's goodness which he was waiting to bring out as soon as a good opportunity was presented. A world designed for the dwelling-place of sinners-sinners not already given over and doomed to final wrath, but to be recovered from sin and trained in virtue and holiness, or, if incorrigible, to be held in check and used as helps in the discipline of the righteous-he plainly saw

Saturday morning he met

g, Ansel," s

ing," retu

studying the Bible in your Bible class, and have

epartment of the works of Nature, and see what indi

the report which came to me. Bu

sing it to be a threshing-machine, he would be likely to pronounce it a foolish and worthless contrivance; and that the fine edge of a razor would be worse than useless upon the cutter of a breaking-up plough. He told us that the e

lieves something of that kind. A

pon that subject and ha

ages and ages ago, before the earth was fit for men to live upon it, are the same as

from the beginning of the geologic periods. I

ow nothing of the forces and principles then in existence. In geologic studies we judge the past from the present, and if that be not a trustworthy method of reasoning, all the conclusions of geologists are as worthless as

he

precept so to

t the earth wi

ble, and from

er-from the s

al summe

e Crea

angels tu

rth twice ten d

e sun's

troduced among the brute c

iscord

sin, among t

ed through fie

east 'gan war, a

sh; to graze the

d each

heir remains lie imbedded in rock which cert

ask Mr. Wilton one

er question, and I suppose you wo

ges before man was brought into existence? It would seem that if man had remained obedient he could not have lived pleasantly in a world prepare

said Ansel, "at the f

pected, for, before entering upon the proposed less

or objections which may suggest themselves to your own minds or which you may hear presented by others. At the close of the last lesson the views which I had presented to you seemed

annot see the use, even if we suppose that the ear

at mystery-mysterious as a whole, and mysterious in all its parts-upon any supposition. But the explanation which I gave of its design furnishes a sufficient reason for the great outline of creation. This gives a reason for the pains and miseries which dog man at every step. This gives a reason for the earth's being left rugged and sluggish, bringing forth thorns and thistles, and requiring to be subdued

sel said, "Mr. Hume wished

interest in the subject, and not with the design of perplexing us. I wish also that he

a world prepared for a race of sinners and unfitted for a sinless race. He said that in

d you try to gi

o me a very great objection. I did not see how such

he discussion will take more time than we ought to spare, but now that the question has been asked

es wholly inexplicable by man attend facts and principles which must be true. A fact may be incomprehensible, though undeniable. The great Doctor Johnson said, '

nd could no more explain the possibility that any space should be filled with matter, but that all space must be f

t makes no difference with what principle or proposition we start if it only contain some infinite element. Let me give you a simple illustration from geometry-an illustration which, very likely, is familiar to you: the larger a circle, the less is the curvature of the line which bounds it; that is, the more nearly does that line approach a straight line. An infinite circle must be bounded by a straight line, because with any degree of curvature the circle would be less than infinite. But a straight line cannot bound a circle. The attempt to reason about an in

ut let us look at the other side, and see if equal objections do not exist. The Creator foresaw the fall of man; is there no objection to the supposition that, knowing that man would sin, God made no provisi

of the human race? This same objection, which Mr. Hume and many others have brought forward, lies with equal force against the great central fact of the gospel, the death of Christ. God's plan touching this world included the incarnation and death of his Son. Jesus, the 'Lamb of God,' is spoken of as 'slain from the foundation of the world.' Rev. xiii. 8. But t

, he would doubtless have argued as Mr. Hume and others are accustomed to do. But did God's plan excuse his treason against his Lord? His own conscience, piercing and rending his soul with remorse, drove him t

, and armies. The Governor of the universe, knowing the liability of man to sin and fall-a liability which by his foreknowledge was to him a certainty-made provision for that foreseen apostasy. He made provision, both by the creation of a world suited to a sinful race kept under a probation of mercy, and by appointing a Redeemer, the 'Lamb of God,' slain, in the eternal purpose, before the foundation of the world. If Mr

fficulties does not disprove the trut

e present apostasy of the human race is burdened w

did make provision for the fall of ma

e woven into every figure of the web of divine providence. Not the treason of Judas alone, but the whole sum of man's evil-doing, is embraced in the far-reaching plan of God. How this magnifies the

think, Ansel, that you can repeat the

y, sir, if

have not attempted to explain this mystery. I have only tried to show that the admission of the view I have given you is more satisfactory to reason than its deni

than I designed, but now let us turn our

irst, to consider what heat is and to review the laws of its action. Without this, we cou

heories which have been held

d light was supposed to exist unmingled and pure. In the seventeenth century, Beccher and Stahl, two German chemists, brought forward what is known as the phlogistic hypothesis. They supposed that every combustible body held in composition a pure, ethereal substance which they called phlogiston, a Greek word which signifies burned, and that in combustion this phlogiston escaped. Flame was supposed

action for the atoms of every other substance, while between its own atoms a strong repulsion exists. In solid bodies each atom of matter, or in compound bodies each cluster of atoms, has been supposed to be surrounded by a little atmosph

. Wilton; "we have hardly time to go into the histo

hot body is one whose atoms are in a state of rapid and intense motion or vibration; and the sensation of heat on touching a hot body ari

e dynamic theory, though recently made popular, is by no means a recent conception. It was advocated by such men as Bacon, Newton, Rumford, Davy, Locke, and others. Locke, the distinguished intellectual philosopher who lived in the latter half of the seventeenth century (born 1632, died 1704), said, 'Heat is a very brisk agitation of the insensible parts of an object, which produces in us that sensation from which

'-that is, everything is in a state of change. Solomon has well described this perpetual movement and change: 'One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place whence he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north. It whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither do they return again. All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun.' Eccles. i. 4-9. It is certainly in harmony with this universal movement that the atoms

ked Samuel, "that the dyna

et me illustrate. Astronomers had long inquired what force or law controlled the movements of the heavenly bodies. At length Newton answered, A force of attraction between bodies which decreases in proportion as the square of the distance between

orbit of Uranus they would have seemed to the naked eye, throughout their course, one and the same star. This slight irregularity of motion was so nicely measured that the place of the unseen planet which caused it was almost exactly calculated from the e

ck and forth upon the concave vault, doubling and crossing their tracks apparently in the greatest disorder. How shall their motions be explained? Astronomers have found that the motions of planets revolving around a central sun, wh

ion, which no other theory is able to do: the shock of the collision generates this atomic vibration. It explains the production of heat by combustion: the atoms of oxygen and carbon or hydrogen dash against each other and generate heat by the collision. This theory explains the transmutation of motion, or living force, and electricity, into heat, and the transmutation of heat into electric or mechanical force. These points will come up again, and I now only refer to them in answering Samuel's question. The dy

l take a rapid review of th