Second. Let us condense this same nebula to 773·395 times less dense than water, and consequently to the density of air at atmospheric pressure, then its diameter will be 8,930,309 miles, volume 372,905,560,345^9 cubic miles, and the mean heat 0°, or the heat of freezing water--which by some unexplained process of thought has hitherto been considered to be 274° of absolute _temperature_.
Third. By again condensing the Solar nebula to the density of water, corresponding to a pressure of more than 773 atmospheres, its diameter becomes 972,285 miles, its volume 482,167^{ 12} cubic miles, and mean heat 775°, including the 2° acquired in condensing it to the pressure of 1 atmosphere, as is plainly shown in Table III.
Before going any further we must enter into a digression to examine into the process of thought by which the absolute zero of heat has come to be called the absolute zero of temperature, and absolute temperature to be so many degrees of negative--less than 0° or nothing--heat counted from the lower or wrong end, to be called positive absolute temperature; thus making heat and temperature appear to be two very different things, without giving any explanation of what is the difference between them.
Science has, as it were, gone down a stair of 274 steps carrying along with it the laws of gases, and has found, most legitimately, with their assistance the total absence of even negative heat at the bottom of it; and, leaving these laws there, has jumped up to the top of the stair, thinking that it carried along with it 274° of absolute heat, which it now calls temperature; instead of bringing the said laws up with it and verifying, if not at every step at least at intervals, how much it brought up with it of what it had taken down. Had it done so it would have found that at the top of the stair it had got what was equal to only 2° of positive heat as measured by the Centigrade scale, as has been shown above, which might be called temperature, but that would not mend matters. Science seems to have forgotten, for the time being at least, all about the laws of gases; it had got something which it thought would enable it to mount much higher, and was satisfied. It will not be difficult to do away with the confusion of thought that is thus shown to have occurred.