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[39]
In a popular lecture, distinguished for its charming simplicity and clearness, which Joule delivered in the
year 1847,[40] that famous physicist declares that the living force which a heavy body has acquired by its
descent through a certain height and which it carries with it in the form of the velocity with which it is
impressed, is the equivalent of the attraction of gravity through the space fallen through, and that it
would be "absurd" to assume that this living force could be destroyed without some restitution of that
equivalent. He then adds: "You will therefore be surprised to hear that until very recently the universal
opinion has been that living force could be absolutely and irrevocably destroyed at any one's option."
Let us add that to-day, after forty-seven years, the law of the conservation of energy, wherever
civilisation exists, is accepted as a fully established truth and receives the widest applications in all
domains of natural science.
[Pg 138]
The fate of all momentous discoveries is similar. On their first appearance they are regarded by the
majority of men as errors. J. R. Mayer's work on the principle of energy (1842) was rejected by the first
physical journal of Germany; Helmholtz's treatise (1847) met with no better success; and even Joule, to
judge from an intimation of Playfair, seems to have encountered difficulties with his first publication
(1843). Gradually, however, people are led to see that the new view was long prepared for and ready for
enunciation, only that a few favored minds had perceived it much earlier than the rest, and in this way the
opposition of the majority is overcome. With proofs of the fruitfulness of the new view, with its success,
confidence in it increases. The majority of the men who employ it cannot enter into a deep-going analysis
of it; for them, its success is its proof. It can thus happen that a view which has led to the greatest
discoveries, like Black's theory of caloric, in a subsequent period in a province where it does not apply
may actually become an obstacle to progress by its blinding our eyes to facts which do not fit in with our
favorite conceptions. If a theory is to be protected from this dubious rôle, the grounds and motives of its
evolution and existence must be examined from time to time with the utmost care.
The most multifarious physical changes, thermal,
[Pg 139]
electrical, chemical, and so forth, can be brought about by mechanical work. When such alterations are
reversed they yield anew the mechanical work in exactly the quantity which was required for the
production of the part reversed. This is the principle of the conservation of energy; "energy" being the
term which has gradually come into use for that "indestructible something" of which the measure is
mechanical work.
How did we acquire this idea? What are the sources from which we have drawn it? This question is not
only of interest in itself, but also for the important reason above touched upon. The opinions which are
held concerning the foundations of the law of energy still diverge very widely from one another. Many
trace the principle to the impossibility of a perpetual motion, which they regard either as sufficiently
proved by experience, or as self-evident. In the province of pure mechanics the impossibility of a
perpetual motion, or the continuous production of work without some permanent alteration, is easily
demonstrated. Accordingly, if we start from the theory that all physical processes are purely mechanical
processes, motions of molecules and atoms, we embrace also, by this mechanical conception of
physics, the impossibility of a perpetual motion in the whole physical domain. At present this view
probably counts the most adherents. Other inquirers, however, are for accepting only a purely
experimental establishment of the law of energy.
[Pg 140]
It will appear, from the discussion to follow, that all the factors mentioned have co-operated in the
development of the view in question; but that in addition to them a logical and purely formal factor,
hitherto little considered, has also played a very important part.
Fig. 41.
S. Stevinus, in his famous work Hypomnemata mathematica, Tom. IV, De statica, (Leyden, 1605, p. 34),
treats of the equilibrium of bodies on inclined planes.
Over a triangular prism ABC, one side of which, AC, is horizontal, an endless cord or chain is slung, to
which at equal distances apart fourteen balls of equal weight are attached, as represented in
cross-section in Figure 41. Since we can imagine the lower
[Pg 141]
symmetrical part of the cord ABC taken away, Stevinus concludes that the four balls on AB hold in
equilibrium the two balls on BC. For if the equilibrium were for a moment disturbed, it could never
subsist: the cord would keep moving round forever in the same direction,—we should have a perpetual
motion. He says:
"But if this took place, our row or ring of balls would come once more into their original
position, and from the same cause the eight globes to the left would again be heavier than
the six to the right, and therefore those eight would sink a second time and these six rise,
and all the globes would keep up, of themselves, a continuous and unending motion,
which is false."[41]
Stevinus, now, easily derives from this principle the laws of equilibrium on the inclined plane and
numerous other fruitful consequences.
In the chapter "Hydrostatics" of the same work, page 114, Stevinus sets up the following principle:
"Aquam datam, datum sibi intra aquam locum servare,"—a given mass of water preserves within water
its given place.
Fig. 42.
Fig. 43.
[Pg 146]
The remark relative to the pendulum may be applied to the inclined plane and leads to the law of inertia.
We read on page 124:[45]
[Pg 147]
"It is plain now that a movable body, starting from rest at A and descending down the
inclined plane AB, acquires a velocity proportional to the increment of its time: the velocity
possessed at B is the greatest of the velocities acquired, and by its nature immutably
impressed, provided all causes of new acceleration or retardation are taken away: I say
acceleration, having in view its possible further progress along the plane extended;
retardation, in view of the possibility of its being reversed and made to mount the
ascending plane BC. But in the horizontal plane GH its equable motion, according to its
velocity as acquired in the descent from A to B, will be continued ad infinitum." (Fig. 44.)
Fig. 44.
Huygens, upon whose shoulders the mantel of Galileo fell, forms a sharper conception of the law of
inertia and generalises the principle respecting the heights of ascent which was so fruitful in Galileo's
hands. He employs the latter principle in the solution of the problem of the centre of oscillation and is
perfectly clear in the statement that the principle respecting the heights of ascent is identical with the
principle of the excluded perpetual motion.
The following important passages then occur (Hugenii, Horologium oscillatorium, pars secunda).
Hypotheses:
[Pg 148]
"If gravity did not exist, nor the atmosphere obstruct the motions of bodies, a body would
keep up forever the motion once impressed upon it, with equable velocity, in a straight
line."[46]
In part four of the Horologium de centro oscillationis we read:
"If any number of weights be set in motion by the force of gravity, the common centre of
gravity of the weights as a whole cannot possibly rise higher than the place which it
occupied when the motion began.
"That this hypothesis of ours may arouse no scruples, we will state that it simply imports,
what no one has ever denied, that heavy bodies do not move upwards.—And truly if the
devisers of the new machines who make such futile attempts to construct a perpetual
motion would acquaint themselves with this principle, they could easily be brought to see
their errors and to understand that the thing is utterly impossible by mechanical means."[47]
There is possibly a Jesuitical mental reservation contained in the words "mechanical means." One might
be led to believe from them that Huygens held a non-mechanical perpetual motion for possible.
The generalisation of Galileo's principle is still more clearly put in Prop. IV of the same chapter:
"If a pendulum, composed of several weights, set in motion from rest, complete any part of
its full oscillation, and from that point onwards, the individual weights, with their common
connexions dissolved, change their acquired velocities upwards and ascend as far as they
can, the common centre of gravity of all will be carried up to the same altitude with that
which it occupied before the beginning of the oscillation."[48]
[Pg 149]
On this last principle now, which is a generalisation, applied to a system of masses, of one of Galileo's
ideas respecting a single mass and which from Huygens's explanation we recognise as the principle of
excluded perpetual motion, Huygens grounds his theory of the centre of oscillation. Lagrange
characterises this principle as precarious and is rejoiced at James Bernoulli's successful attempt, in
1681, to reduce the theory of the centre of oscillation to the laws of the lever, which appeared to him
clearer. All the great inquirers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries broke a lance on this problem,
and it led ultimately, in conjunction with the principle of virtual velocities, to the principle enunciated by
D'Alembert in 1743 in his Traité de dynamique, though previously employed in a somewhat different form
by Euler and Hermann.
Furthermore, the Huygenian principle respecting the heights of ascent became the foundation of the "law
of the conservation of living force," as that was enunciated by John and Daniel Bernoulli and employed
[Pg 150]
with such signal success by the latter in his Hydrodynamics. The theorems of the Bernoullis differ in
form only from Lagrange's expression in the Analytical Mechanics.
The manner in which Torricelli reached his famous law of efflux for liquids leads again to our principle.
Torricelli assumed that the liquid which flows out of the basal orifice of a vessel cannot by its velocity of
efflux ascend to a greater height than its level in the vessel.
Let us next consider a point which belongs to pure mechanics, the history of the principle of virtual
motions or virtual velocities. This principle was not first enunciated, as is usually stated, and as
Lagrange also asserts, by Galileo, but earlier, by Stevinus. In his Trochleostatica of the above-cited work,
page 72, he says:
"Observe that this axiom of statics holds good here:
"As the space of the body acting is to the space of the body acted upon, so is the power of
the body acted upon to the power of the body acting."[49]
Galileo, as we know, recognised the truth of the principle in the consideration of the simple machines,
and also deduced the laws of the equilibrium of liquids from it.
Torricelli carries the principle back to the properties of the centre of gravity. The condition controlling
[Pg 151]
equilibrium in a simple machine, in which power and load are represented by weights, is that the
common centre of gravity of the weights shall not sink. Conversely, if the centre of gravity cannot sink
equilibrium obtains, because heavy bodies of themselves do not move upwards. In this form the
principle of virtual velocities is identical with Huygens's principle of the impossibility of a perpetual
motion.
John Bernoulli, in 1717, first perceived the universal import of the principle of virtual movements for all
systems; a discovery stated in a letter to Varignon. Finally, Lagrange gives a general demonstration of
the principle and founds upon it his whole Analytical Mechanics. But this general demonstration is based
after all upon Huygens and Torricelli's remarks. Lagrange, as is known, conceives simple pulleys
arranged in the directions of the forces of the system, passes a cord through these pulleys, and appends
to its free extremity a weight which is a common measure of all the forces of the system. With no
difficulty, now, the number of elements of each pulley may be so chosen that the forces in question shall
be replaced by them. It is then clear that if the weight at the extremity cannot sink, equilibrium subsists,
because heavy bodies cannot of themselves move upwards. If we do not go so far, but wish to abide by
Torricelli's idea, we may conceive every individual force of the system replaced by a special weight
suspended from a cord passing over a pulley in the direction of the force and attached
[Pg 152]
at its point of application. Equilibrium subsists then when the common centre of gravity of all the
weights together cannot sink. The fundamental supposition of this demonstration is plainly the
impossibility of a perpetual motion.
Lagrange tried in every way to supply a proof free from extraneous elements and fully satisfactory, but
without complete success. Nor were his successors more fortunate.
The whole of mechanics, thus, is based upon an idea, which, though unequivocal, is yet unwonted and
not coequal with the other principles and axioms of mechanics. Every student of mechanics, at some
stage of his progress, feels the uncomfortableness of this state of affairs; every one wishes it removed;
but seldom is the difficulty stated in words. Accordingly, the zealous pupil of the science is highly
rejoiced when he reads in a master like Poinsot (Théorie générale de l'équilibre et du mouvement des
systèmes) the following passage, in which that author is giving his opinion of the Analytical Mechanics:
"In the meantime, because our attention in that work was first wholly engrossed with the
consideration of its beautiful development of mechanics, which seemed to spring complete
from a single formula, we naturally believed that the science was completed or that it only
remained to seek the demonstration of the principle of virtual velocities. But that quest
brought back all the difficulties that we had overcome by the principle itself. That law so
general, wherein are mingled the vague and unfamiliar ideas of infinitely small movements
and of perturbations of equilibrium, only grew
[Pg 153]
obscure upon examination; and the work of Lagrange supplying nothing clearer than the
march of analysis, we saw plainly that the clouds had only appeared lifted from the course
of mechanics because they had, so to speak, been gathered at the very origin of that
science.
"At bottom, a general demonstration of the principle of virtual velocities would be
equivalent to the establishment of the whole of mechanics upon a different basis: for the
demonstration of a law which embraces a whole science is neither more nor less than the
reduction of that science to another law just as general, but evident, or at least more
simple than the first, and which, consequently, would render that useless."[50]
According to Poinsot, therefore, a proof of the principle of virtual movements is tantamount to a total
rehabilitation of mechanics.
Another circumstance of discomfort to the mathematician is, that in the historical form in which
mechanics at present exists, dynamics is founded on statics, whereas it is desirable that in a science
which pretends to deductive completeness the more special statical theorems should be deducible from
the more general dynamical principles.
[Pg 154]
In fact, a great master, Gauss, gave expression to this desire in his presentment of the principle of least
constraint (Crelle's Journal für reine und angewandte Mathematik, Vol. IV, p. 233) in the following words:
"Proper as it is that in the gradual development of a science, and in the instruction of individuals, the
easy should precede the difficult, the simple the complex, the special the general, yet the mind, when
once it has reached a higher point of view, demands the contrary course, in which all statics shall appear
simply as a special case of mechanics." Gauss's own principle, now, possesses all the requisites of
universality, but its difficulty is that it is not immediately intelligible and that Gauss deduced it with the
help of D'Alembert's principle, a procedure which left matters where they were before.
Whence, now, is derived this strange part which the principle of virtual motion plays in mechanics? For
the present I shall only make this reply. It would be difficult for me to tell the difference of impression
which Lagrange's proof of the principle made on me when I first took it up as a student and when I
subsequently resumed it after having made historical researches. It first appeared to me insipid, chiefly
on account of the pulleys and the cords which did not fit in with the mathematical view, and whose action
I would much rather have discovered from the principle
[Pg 155]
itself than have taken for granted. But now that I have studied the history of the science I cannot imagine
a more beautiful demonstration.
In fact, through all mechanics it is this self-same principle of excluded perpetual motion which
accomplishes almost all, which displeased Lagrange, but which he still had to employ, at least tacitly, in
his own demonstration. If we give this principle its proper place and setting, the paradox is explained.
The principle of excluded perpetual motion is thus no new discovery; it has been the guiding idea, for
three hundred years, of all the great inquirers. But the principle cannot properly be based upon
mechanical perceptions. For long before the development of mechanics the conviction of its truth
existed and even contributed to that development. Its power of conviction, therefore, must have more
universal and deeper roots. We shall revert to this point.
VI. THE DIFFERENCES OF THE ENERGIES AND THE LIMITS OF THE PRINCIPLE OF ENERGY.
Of every quantity of heat Q which does work in a reversible process (one unaccompanied by loss)
between the absolute temperatures T1, T2, only the portion
(T1-T2)/T1
is transformed into work, while the remainder is transferred to the lower temperature-level T2. This
transferred portion can, upon the reversal of the process, with the same expenditure of work, again be
brought back to the level T1. But if the process is not reversible, then more heat than in the foregoing
case flows to the lower level, and the surplus can no longer be brought back to the higher level T2
without some special expenditure. W. Thomson (1852), accordingly, drew attention to the fact, that in all
non-reversible, that is, in all real thermal processes, quantities of heat are lost for mechanical work, and
that accordingly a dissipation or waste of mechanical energy is taking place. In all cases, heat is only
partially transformed into work, but frequently work is wholly transformed
[Pg 176]
into heat. Hence, a tendency exists towards a diminution of the mechanical energy and towards an
increase of the thermal energy of the world.
For a simple, closed cyclical process, accompanied by no loss, in which the quantity of heat Q_{1} is
taken from the level T_{1}, and the quantity Q_{2} is deposited upon the level T_{2}, the following
relation, agreeably to equation (2), exists,
-(Q1/T1) + (Q2/T2) = 0.
Similarly, for any number of compound reversible cycles Clausius finds the algebraical sum
ΣQ/T = 0,
and supposing the temperature to change continuously,
∫dQ/T = 0 (4)
Here the elements of the quantities of heat deducted from a given level are reckoned negative, and the
elements imparted to it, positive. If the process is not reversible, then expression (4), which Clausius
calls entropy, increases. In actual practice this is always the case, and Clausius finds himself led to the
statement:
1. That the energy of the world remains constant.
2. That the entropy of the world tends toward a maximum.
Once we have noted the above-indicated conformity in the behavior of different energies, the peculiarity
[Pg 177]
of thermal energy here mentioned must strike us. Whence is this peculiarity derived, for, generally every
energy passes only partly into another form, which is also true of thermal energy? The explanation will
be found in the following.
Every transformation of a special kind of energy A is accompanied with a fall of potential of that
particular kind of energy, including heat. But whilst for the other kinds of energy a transformation and
therefore a loss of energy on the part of the kind sinking in potential is connected with the fall of the
potential, with heat the case is different. Heat can suffer a fall of potential without sustaining a loss of
energy, at least according to the customary mode of estimation. If a weight sinks, it must create perforce
kinetic energy, or heat, or some other form of energy. Also, an electrical charge cannot suffer a fall of
potential without loss of energy, i. e., without transformation. But heat can pass with a fall of temperature
to a body of greater capacity and the same thermal energy still be preserved, so long as we regard every
quantity of heat as energy. This it is that gives to heat, besides its property of energy, in many cases the
character of a material substance, or quantity.
If we look at the matter in an unprejudiced light, we must ask if there is any scientific sense or purpose in
still considering as energy a quantity of heat that can no longer be transformed into mechanical work,
(for example, the heat of a closed equably warmed
[Pg 178]
material system). The principle of energy certainly plays in this case a wholly superfluous rôle, which is
assigned to it only from habit.[58] To maintain the principle of energy in the face of a knowledge of the
dissipation or waste of mechanical energy, in the face of the increase of entropy is equivalent almost to
the liberty which Black took when he regarded the heat of liquefaction as still present but latent.[59] It is to
be remarked further, that the expressions "energy of the world" and "entropy of the world" are slightly
permeated with scholasticism. Energy and entropy are metrical notions. What meaning can there be in
applying these notions to a case in which they are not applicable, in which their values are not
determinable?
If we could really determine the entropy of the world it would represent a true, absolute measure of time.
In this way is best seen the utter tautology of a statement that the entropy of the world increases with the
time. Time, and the fact that certain changes take place only in a definite sense, are one and the same
thing.
[Pg 179]
[Pg 186]
The question now remains, whether the same method of research which till now we have tacitly
restricted to physics, is also applicable in the psychical domain. This question will appear superfluous to
the physical inquirer. Our physical and psychical views spring in exactly the same manner from
instinctive knowledge. We read the thoughts of men in their acts and facial expressions without knowing
how. Just as we predict the behavior of a magnetic needle placed near a current by imagining Ampère's
swimmer in the current, similarly we predict in thought the acts and behavior of men by assuming
sensations, feelings, and wills similar to our own connected with their bodies. What we here instinctively
perform would appear to us as one of the subtlest achievements of science, far outstripping in
significance and ingenuity Ampère's rule of the swimmer, were it not that every child unconsciously
accomplished it. The question simply is, therefore, to grasp scientifically, that is, by conceptional
thought, what we are already familiar with from other sources. And here much is to be accomplished. A
long sequence of facts is to be disclosed between the physics of expression and movement and feeling
and thought.
We hear the question, "But how is it possible to explain feeling by the motions of the atoms of the
brain?" Certainly this will never be done, no more than light or heat will ever be deduced from the law of
refraction. We need not deplore, therefore, the lack of ingenious solutions of this question. The problem
is not a problem. A child looking over the walls of a city or of a fort into the moat below sees with
astonishment living people in it, and not knowing of the portal which connects the wall with the moat,
cannot understand how they could have got down from the high ramparts. So it is with the notions of
physics. We cannot climb up into the province of psychology by the ladder of our abstractions, but we
can climb down into it.
Let us look at the matter without bias. The world consists of colors, sounds, temperatures, pressures,
spaces, times, and so forth, which now we shall not call sensations, nor phenomena, because in either
term an arbitrary, one-sided theory is embodied, but simply elements. The fixing of the flux of these
elements, whether mediately or immediately, is the real object of physical research. As long as,
neglecting our own body, we employ ourselves with the interdependence of those groups of elements
which, including men and animals, make up foreign bodies, we are physicists. For example, we
investigate the change of the red color of a body as produced by a change of illumination. But the
moment we consider the special influence on the red of the elements constituting our body, outlined by
the well-known perspective with head invisible, we are at work in the domain of physiological
psychology. We close our eyes, and the red together with the whole visible world disappears. There
exists, thus, in the perspective field of every sense a portion which exercises on all the rest a different
and more powerful influence than the rest upon one another. With this, however, all is said. In the light of
this remark, we call all elements, in so far as we regard them as dependent on this special part (our
body), sensations. That the world is our sensation, in this sense, cannot be questioned. But to make a
system of conduct out of this provisional conception, and to abide its slaves, is as unnecessary for us as
would be a similar course for a mathematician who, in varying a series of variables of a function which
were previously assumed to be constant, or in interchanging the independent variables, finds his method
to be the source of some very surprising ideas for him.[68]
If we look at the matter in this unbiassed light it will appear indubitable that the method of physiological
psychology is none other than that of physics; what is more, that this science is a part of physics. Its
subject-matter is not different from that of physics. It will unquestionably determine the relations the
sensations bear to the physics of our body. We have already learned from a member of this academy
(Hering) that in all probability a sixfold manifoldness of the chemical processes of the visual substance
corresponds to the sixfold manifoldness of color-sensation, and a threefold manifoldness of the
physiological processes to the threefold manifoldness of space-sensations. The paths of reflex actions
and of the will are followed up and disclosed; it is ascertained what region of the brain subserves the
function of speech, what region the function of locomotion, etc. That which still clings to our body,
namely, our thoughts, will, when those investigations are finished, present no difficulties new in
principle. When experience has once clearly exhibited these facts and science has marshalled them in
economic and perspicuous order, there is no doubt that we shall understand them. For other
"understanding" than a mental mastery of facts never existed. Science does not create facts from facts,
but simply orders known facts.
Let us look, now, a little more closely into the modes of research of physiological psychology. We have a
very clear idea of how a body moves in the space encompassing it. With our optical field of sight we are
very familiar. But we are unable to state, as a rule, how we have come by an idea, from what corner of our
intellectual field of sight it has entered, or by what region the impulse to a motion is sent forth. Moreover,
we shall never get acquainted with this mental field of view from self-observation alone. Self-observation,
in conjunction with physiological research, which seeks out physical connexions, can put this field of
vision in a clear light before us, and will thus first really reveal to us our inner man.
Primarily, natural science, or physics, in its widest sense, makes us acquainted with only the firmest
connexions of groups of elements. Provisorily, we may not bestow too much attention on the single
constituents of those groups, if we are desirous of retaining a comprehensible whole. Instead of
equations between the primitive variables, physics gives us, as much the easiest course, equations
between functions of those variables. Physiological psychology teaches us how to separate the visible,
the tangible, and the audible from bodies—a labor which is subsequently richly requited, as the division
of the subjects of physics well shows. Physiology further analyses the visible into light and space
sensations; the first into colors, the last also into their component parts; it resolves noises into sounds,
these into tones, and so on. Unquestionably this analysis can be carried much further than it has been. It
will be possible in the end to exhibit the common elements at the basis of very abstract but definite
logical acts of like form,—elements which the acute jurist and mathematician, as it were, feels out, with
absolute certainty, where the uninitiated hears only empty words. Physiology, in a word, will reveal to us
the true real elements of the world. Physiological psychology bears to physics in its widest sense a
relation similar to that which chemistry bears to physics in its narrowest sense. But far greater than the
mutual support of physics and chemistry will be that which natural science and psychology will render
each other. And the results that shall spring from this union will, in all likelihood, far outstrip those of the
modern mechanical physics.
What those ideas are with which we shall comprehend the world when the closed circuit of physical and
psychological facts shall lie complete before us, (that circuit of which we now see only two disjoined
parts,) cannot be foreseen at the outset of the work. The men will be found who will see what is right and
will have the courage, instead of wandering in the intricate paths of logical and historical accident, to
enter on the straight ways to the heights from which the mighty stream of facts can be surveyed.
Whether the notion which we now call matter will continue to have a scientific significance beyond the
crude purposes of common life, we do not know. But we certainly shall wonder how colors and tones
which were such innermost parts of us could suddenly get lost in our physical world of atoms; how we
could be suddenly surprised that something which outside us simply clicked and beat, in our heads
should make light and music; and how we could ask whether matter can feel, that is to say, whether a
mental symbol for a group of sensations can feel?
We cannot mark out in hard and fast lines the science of the future, but we can foresee that the rigid
walls which now divide man from the world will gradually disappear; that human beings will not only
confront each other, but also the entire organic and so-called lifeless world, with less selfishness and
with livelier sympathy. Just such a presentiment as this perhaps possessed the great Chinese
philosopher Licius some two thousand years ago when, pointing to a heap of mouldering human bones,
he said to his scholars in the rigid, lapidary style of his tongue: "These and I alone have the knowledge
that we neither live nor are dead."