THE INDIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 173 



diversities. This principle is of an equal logical value with 

 the principle of conservation ; like the latter, it is empirical 

 only as far as it applies to real nature. That the intensities, 

 and these only, must be different, and that an intensity can 

 only be raised by another intensity falling and becoming 

 able to " do work," is the empirical part of it ; but that a 

 " something " must be different was prior to all experience. 

 As an illustration of this true second principle of energetics we 

 may remark that in the very largest quantity of water, say 

 the ocean, nothing at all would happen "by itself" if the 

 temperature were the same throughout, or if the surface level 

 were the same everywhere, though the absolute amount of 

 " energy " contained in the water is enormous. There would 

 be no differences of the intensity either of thermic or of 

 potential mechanical energy in these cases. And on the 

 other hand, it is on account of such differences alone that 

 a steam-engine does mechanical work, or that a waterfall 

 can produce electric potentials. 



Let us notice, by the way, that this fact of non-becom- 

 ing in the absence of diversities in intensity might lend 

 countenance to the proposal to call the real second principle 

 of energetics the " first," the law of conservation the "second" 

 principle. The in tensity -principle is " first ' : far more 

 immediately. Moreover, the conservation-principle is only 

 ideally true; only with reference to a zero-point for all 

 energy could all energy practically be measured ; but such 

 a zero-point can never be attained. This shows once more 

 that the conservation-principle rests far more on reasoning 

 than on facts. 



But let us return to the principle of Carnot in its 

 enlarged form. 



