An example of an historical scientific notion which would be considerdd today as an alternative conception:
"Soft and hard parts variously combine, to form a medium consistence adapted to the use of plants and animals; wet and dry are properly mixed for nutrition, or the support of those growing bodies; and hot and cold produce a temperature or climate no less required that a soil….
WE do not now enquire into the nature of those powers, or investigate the laws of light and heat, of cold and condensation, by which the various purposes of this world are accomplished; we are only to mention those effects which are made sensible to the common understanding of mankind, and which necessarily imply a power that is employed. Thus, it is by the operation of those powers that the varieties of season in spring and autumn are obtained, that we are blessed with the vicissitudes of summer's heat and winter's cold, and that we possess the benefit of artificial light and culinary fire…
THERE are just two ways in which porous or spongy bodies can be consolidated, and by which substances may be formed into masses of a natural shape and regular structure; the one of these is simple congelation from a fluid state, by means of cold; the other is accretion; and this includes a separatory operation, as well as that by which the solid body is to be produced….
THE general tendency of heat is to produce fluidity and softness; as that of cold is, on the contrary, to harden soft and fluid bodies. But this softening power of heat is not uniform in its nature; it is made to act with very different effect, according to the nature of the substance to which it is applied. We are but limited in the art of increasing the heat or the cold of bodies; we find, however, extreme difference in their substances with respect to fusibility."
James Hutton (1788) Theory of the Earth
We think of cold as meaning simply a low temperature – perhaps, in the vernacular, a lack of heat. Reading the work of historical scientifc figures from our own perspective, we can make snese of their texts in this way. However, I detect in Hutton's words the sense of cold as active agent, distinct from heat (in the sense of positive and negative charge, or North- and South-seeking magentic poles).
