On the heating effects of electricity and magnetism / W.R. Grove.

  • William Robert Grove
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the heating effects of electricity and magnetism / W.R. Grove. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    2/6 (page 120)
    Passing to the period antecedent to the time of more strict inductive philosophy, viz. the period of the Alchemists, we find many du natural phenomena referred to spiritual causes. Paracelsus taught w( that the Archseus or stomach demon presided over, caused, and s regulated the functions of digestion, assimilation, &c. f fc Van Helmont, who may be considered in many respects the turning k point between Alchemy and true chemistry, adopted with some an modification the Archseus of Paracelsus and many of the opinions of to the Spiritualists, hut shewed tendencies of a more correctly inductive up character; the term ‘ Gas ’ which he introduced, gives evidence of ill the thought involved in it by its derivation from ‘ Geist ’ a ghost or spirit. By regarding it as intermediate between spirit and matter, by n] separating it from common air and by distinguishing or classifying ]f different sorts of gas he paved the way for a more accurate chemical ar system. I ar Shortly after the time of Van Helmont lived Torricelli, who by th his discovery of the weight of air was mainly instrumental in oi changing the character of thought and inducing philosophers to introduce, or at all events to develope the notion of fluids, as agents C1 which effected the more mysterious phenomena of nature, such as ef light, heat, electricity, and magnetism. 1, Air being proved analogous in many of its characters to fluids as previously known, the idea of fluids or of an ether was carried on to Uj other unknown agencies appearing to present effects remotely ft analogous to air or gases. I jn Sound was included by some in the same category with the other 0I affections of matter, and as late as the close of the last century a paper was written by Lamarck to prove that sound was propagated Sf; by the undulations of an ether. Sound is now admitted to be an undulation or motion of ordinary matter, and Mr. Grove considered ct that what have been called the imponderables, or imponderable so fluids, might be actions of a similar character, and might be viewed fe as motions of ordinary matter. s Heat was at an early period so viewed, and we find traces of this jj in the writings of Lord Bacon. Rumford and Davy gave the (e doctrine a greater development, and Mr. Grove in a communication ct made by him at an Evening Meeting of this Institution in 1847, shewed that what had hitherto been deemed stumblingblocks in the „ way of this theory of heat, viz. the phenomena presented by what jp have been called latent and specific heat, might be more simply pi explained by the dynamic theory. 0f In this evening’s communication he brought forward some experi- j0 ments and considerations in favour of the extension of this view to electricity and magnetism, an extension which he had for many | years advocated, and which was, in his opinion, supported by many ^ analogies. jj The ordinary attractions and repulsions of electrified bodies h present no more difficulties when regarded as being produced by a | change in the state or relations of the matter affected, than did the ,j attraction of the earth by the sun, or of a leaden ball by the earth; a the hypothesis of a fluid is not considered necessary for the latter, (J] and need not be so for the former class of phenomena.