Text: The dynamical theory, or, as it is sometimes called, the mechanical theory of heat, discards the idea of materiality as applied to heat. The supporters of this theory do not believe heat to be matter, but an accident or condition of matter; namely, a motion of its ultimate particles. From the direct contemplation of some of the phenomena of heat, a profound mind is led almost instinctively to conclude that heat is a kind of motion. Bacon held a view of this kind (second book of Novum Organum), and Locke stated a similar view with singular felicity. 'Heat,' he says, 'is a very brisk agitation of the insensible parts of the object, which produces in us that sensation from whence we denominate the object hot: so what in our sensation is heat, in the object is nothing but motion.'

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Source: 168