Quotations by Author



Hermann von Helmholtz



Reason we call that faculty innate in us of discovering laws and applying them with thought.


These facts no longer permit us to regard heat as a substance, for its quantity is not unchangeable. It can be produced anew from the vis viva of motion destroyed; it can be destroyed, and then produces motion.


We continually find points of contact and comparison in our conceptions and feelings; we get to know the hidden capacities and desires of the mind, which in the ordinary peaceful course of civilised life remain unawakened.


We must rather conclude from this that heat itself is a motion, an internal invisible motion of the smallest elementary particles of bodies.