Part 4

Mrs. B. I make no doubt, my dear, but that I shall be able to explain this difficulty to you; but I believe that it would be almost impossible to render it intelligible to the comprehension of so young a child as your sister Sophia. You, who are now in your thirteenth year, may, I think, with great propriety, learn not only the cause of this particular fact, but acquire a general knowledge of the laws by which the natural world is governed.

Emily. Of all things, it is what I should most like to learn; but I was afraid it was too difficult a study even at my age.

Mrs. B. Not when familiarly explained: if you have patience to attend, I will most willingly give you all the information in my power. You may perhaps find the subject rather dry at first; but if I succeed in explaining the laws of nature, so as to make you understand them, I am sure that you will derive not only instruction, but great amusement from that study.

Emily. I make no doubt of it, Mrs. B.; and pray begin by explaining why the earth requires no support; for that is the point which just now most strongly excites my curiosity.

Mrs. B. My dear Emily, if I am to attempt to give you a general idea of the laws of nature, which is no less than to introduce you to a knowledge of the science of natural philosophy, it will be necessary for us to proceed with some degree of regularity. I do not wish to confine you to the systematic order of a scientific treatise, but if we were merely to examine every vague question that may chance to occur, our progress would be but very slow. Let us, therefore, begin by taking a short survey of the general properties of bodies, some of which must necessarily be explained before I can attempt to make you understand why the earth requires no support.

When I speak of bodies, I mean substances, of whatever nature, whether solid or fluid; and matter is the general term used to denote the substance, whatever its nature be, of which the different bodies are composed. Thus, the wood of which this table is made, the water with which this glass is filled, and the air which we continually breathe, are each of them matter.

Emily. I am very glad you have explained the meaning of the word matter, as it has corrected an erroneous conception I had formed of it: I thought that it was applicable to solid bodies only.

Mrs. B. There are certain properties which appear to be common to all bodies, and are hence called the essential or inherent properties of bodies; these are Impenetrability, Extension, Figure, Divisibility, Inertia and Attraction. These are also called the general properties of bodies, as we do not suppose any body to exist without them.

By impenetrability is meant the property which bodies have of occupying a certain space, so that where one body is, another can not be, without displacing the former; for two bodies can not exist in the same place at the same time. A liquid may be more easily removed than a solid body; yet it is not the less substantial, since it is as impossible for a liquid and a solid to occupy the same space at the same time, as for two solid bodies to do so. For instance, if you put a spoon into a glass full of water, the water will flow over to make room for the spoon.

Emily. I understand this perfectly. Liquids are in reality as substantial or as impenetrable as solid bodies, and they appear less so, only because they are more easily displaced.

Mrs. B. The air is a fluid differing in its nature from liquids, but no less impenetrable. If I endeavour to fill this phial by plunging it into this bason of water, the air, you see, rushes out of the phial in bubbles, in order to make way for the water, for the air and the water can not exist together in the same space, any more than two hard bodies; and if I reverse this goblet, and plunge it perpendicularly into the water, so that the air will not be able to escape, the water will no longer be able to fill the goblet.

Emily. But it rises some way into the glass.

Mrs. B. Because the water compresses or squeezes the air into a smaller space in the upper part of the glass; but, as long as it remains there, no other body can occupy the same place.

Emily. A difficulty has just occurred to me, with regard to the impenetrability of solid bodies; if a nail is driven into a piece of wood, it penetrates it, and both the wood and the nail occupy the same space that the wood alone did before?

Mrs. B. The nail penetrates between the particles of the wood, by forcing them to make way for it; for you know that not a single atom of wood can remain in the space which the nail occupies; and if the wood is not increased in size by the addition of the nail, it is because wood is a porous substance, like sponge, the particles of which may be compressed or squeezed closer together; and it is thus that they make way for the nail.

We may now proceed to the next general property of bodies, extension. A body which occupies a certain space must necessarily have extension; that is to say, length, breadth and depth or thickness; these are called the dimensions of extension: can you form an idea of any body without them?

Emily. No; certainly I can not; though these dimensions must, of course vary extremely in different bodies. The length, breadth and depth of a box, or of a thimble, are very different from those of a walking stick, or of a hair.

But is not height also a dimension of extension?

Mrs B. Height and depth are the same dimension, considered in different points of view; if you measure a body, or a space, from the top to the bottom, you call it depth; if from the bottom upwards, you call it height; thus the depth and height of a box are, in fact, the same thing.

Emily. Very true; a moment's consideration would have enabled me to discover that; and breadth and width are also the same dimension.

Mrs. B. Yes; the limits of extension constitute figure or shape. You conceive that a body having length, breadth and depth, can not be without form, either symmetrical or irregular?

Emily. Undoubtedly; and this property admits of almost an infinite variety.

Mrs. B. Nature has assigned regular forms to many of her productions. The natural form of various mineral substances is that of crystals, of which there is a great variety. Many of them are very beautiful, and no less remarkable by their transparency or colour, than by the perfect regularity of their forms, as may be seen in the various museums and collections of natural history. The vegetable and animal creation appears less symmetrical, but is still more diversified in figure than the mineral kingdom. Manufactured substances assume the various arbitrary forms which the art of man designs for them; and an infinite number of irregular forms are produced by fractures and by the dismemberment of the parts of bodies.

Emily. Such as a piece of broken china, or glass?

Mrs. B. Or the masses and fragments of stone, and other mineral substances, which are dug out of the earth, or found upon its surface; many of which, although composed of minute crystals, are in the lump of an irregular form.

We may now proceed to divisibility; that is to say, a susceptibility of being divided into an indefinite number of parts. Take any small quantity of matter, a grain of sand for instance, and cut it into two parts; these two parts might be again divided, had we instruments sufficiently fine for the purpose; and if by means of pounding, grinding, and other similar methods, we carry this division to the greatest possible extent, and reduce the body to its finest imaginable particles, yet not one of the particles will be destroyed, but will each contain as many halves and quarters, as did the whole grain.

The dissolving of a solid body in a liquid, affords a very striking example of the extreme divisibility of matter; when you sweeten a cup of tea, for instance, with what minuteness the sugar must be divided to be diffused throughout the whole of the liquid.

Emily. And if you pour a few drops of red wine into a glass of water, they immediately tinge the whole of the water, and must therefore be diffused throughout it.