An enquiry into the opinions, ancient and modern, concerning life and organization / by John Barclay, M.D.

  • Barclay, John, 1758-1826.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An enquiry into the opinions, ancient and modern, concerning life and organization / by John Barclay, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    the maintenance of flame, could have formed an acid that, on mixture, lowers the temperature of snow ? Who could have thought that hydrogen, also an inflammable substance, would, along with the oxygen, constitute water, a fluid that is so pe- culiarly adapted for moderating heat, for quench- ing thirst, and for forming snow, hailstones, and ice ? In short, who, a priori, could have imagined that such aerial and invisible bodies, could have assumed not only a liquid but a solid form, that the particles of heat, and in great quantity, could have been concealed in the coldest bodies, and that light itself, in a state of combination, should cease to be luminous ? Let us not then presume to insinuate that the passions, the instincts, and appetites of animals, are entirely different from the properties of mat- ter ; for matter is a term not expressive of any particular substance, but a class of substances, and a class, too, that contains under it many orders, genera, and species j nay, sometimes is even made to comprehend whatever has existence, either as an object in nature or in thought. But, taking it even in the more limited and restricted sense, be- sides oxygen, light, and Caloric, the electric, gal- vanic, and magnetic fluids, with all the tribe of • imponderable substances, many of them not only extremely active, but extensively diflPused, we have, under this class, all the varieties of earths and me- tals, we mean those denominated simple, because chemistry has not yet decomposed them. As ibr their compounds, we may suppose them to be al-