And the latter manifests by what means the agitation of heat so
easily _loosens_ and _unties_ the parts of _solid_ and _firm_ bodies. Nor
need we suppose heat to be any thing else, besides such a motion; for
supposing we could _Mechanically_ produce such a one _quick_ and _strong_
enough, we need not spend _fuel_ to _melt_ a body. Now, that I do not speak
this altogether groundless, I must refer the Reader to the Observations I
have made upon the shining sparks of Steel, for there he shall find that
_the same_ effects are produced upon small chips or parcels of Steel by the
_flame_, and by _a quick and violent motion_; and if the body of _steel_
may be thus melted (as I there shew it may) I think we have little reason
to doubt that almost _any other_ may not also. Every Smith can inform one
how quickly both his _File_ and the _Iron_ grows _hot_ with _filing_, and
if you _rub_ almost any two _hard_ bodies together, they will do the same:
And we know, that a sufficient degree of heat causes _fluidity_, in some
bodies much sooner, and in others later; that is, the parts of the body of
some are so _loose_ from one another, and so _unapt to cohere_, and so
_minute_ and _little_, that a very _small_ degree of agitation keeps them
always in the _state of fluidity_. Of this kind, I suppose, the _AEther_,
that is the _medium_ or _fluid_ body, in which all other bodies do as it
were swim and move; and particularly, the _Air_, which seems nothing else
but a kind of _tincture_ or _solution_ of terrestrial and aqueous particles
_dissolv'd_ into it, and agitated by it, just as the _tincture_ of
_Cocheneel_ is nothing but some finer _dissoluble_ parts of that Concrete
lick'd up or _dissolv'd_ by the _fluid_ water.
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