Why Will People Go Astray

When I Came To Know Mrs. Marcet Personally; How Often I Cast My Thoughts Backward, Delighting To Connect The Past And The Present; How Often, When Sending A Paper To Her As A Thank You Offering, I Thought Of My First Instructress.

When A Mathematician Engaged In Investigating Physical Actions And Results Has Arrived At His Own Conclusions, May They Not Be Expressed In Common Language As Fully, Clearly, And Definitely As In Mathematical Formulae? If So, Would It Not Be A Great Boon To Such As Well To Express Them So -- Translating Them Out Of Their Hieroglyphics That We Might Also Work Upon Them By Experiment?

But Still Try, For Who Knows What Is Possible?

A Man In Twenty-four Hours Converts As Much As Seven Ounces Of Carbon Into Carbonic Acid; A Milch Cow Will Convert Seventy Ounces, And A Horse Seventy-nine Ounces, Solely By The Act Of Respiration. That Is, The Horse In Twenty-four Hours Burns Seventy-nine Ounces Of Charcoal, Or Carbon, In His Organs Of Respiration To Supply His Natural Warmth In That Time ..., Not In A Free State, But In A State Of Combination.

You Will Be Astonished When I Tell You What This Curious Play Of Carbon Amounts To. A Candle Will Burn Some Four, Five, Six, Or Seven Hours. What, Then, Must Be The Daily Amount Of Carbon Going Up Into The Air In The Way Of Carbonic Acid! ... Then What Becomes Of It? Wonderful Is It To Find That The Change Produced By Respiration ... Is The Very Life And Support Of Plants And Vegetables That Grow Upon The Surface Of The Earth.