134 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



no barrier to progress; for that particles at different distances are urged, to- 

 wards each other with a power varying inversely as the square of the dis- 

 tance is a truth; but the definition has not that meaning; and what I object 

 to is the pretence of knowledge which the definition sets up when it assumes 

 to describe, not the partial effects of the force, but the nature of the force as 

 a whole. 



THE CORRELATION AND HOMOGENESIS OF PHYSICAL FORCES. 



The following article, written by L'Abbe Moigno, was recently published 

 in the London Photographic Neics: 



All the forces of nature motion, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, 

 chemical affinity have intimate relations or correlations with each other. 

 These forces engender each other; so that, one being given, AVC can, by put- 

 ting it into action, produce all the others. This generation or homogenesis 

 of the various forces by each other takes place in definite proportions, or 

 according to the law of fixed equivalents; so that the quantity of any one 

 of these forces expended in the act of generating another force is always 

 represented by a corresponding quantity of the force engendered. Thus, for 

 example, if, to create a mechanical force, we expend, without loss, the 

 quantity of heat necessary to raise a kilogramme of water one degree of 

 heat, the mechanical force produced will be capable of raising, in a second 

 of time, 427 kilogrammes to the height of a meter; and reciprocally, if, to 

 produce one degree of heat, we expend the force capable of raising a meter 

 in height, in one second, a weight of 427 kilogrammes, the quantity of heat 

 engendered will be that necessary to communicate, and will suffice to com- 

 municate to a liter of water one degree of temperature. M. de Beaumont's 

 machine admirably demonstrates this fundamental principle, which will 

 receive its full development when science shall have become able to define 

 and accurately determine the mechanical, thermal, photogenic, electric, mag- 

 netic, and synergic equivalents as clearly and accurately as it has arrived 

 at determining the chemical equivalents of various simple and compound 

 substances. 



But this is not all. In making another step in advance, we have estab- 

 lished, as a certain proposition, that the generation or homogenesis of the 

 various forces of nature is accomplished by a real transformation of one 

 into another; so that, for example, heat, under given conditions, is trans- 

 formed into a motive power, into light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical 

 affinity; or, rather, becomes motive power, light, electricity, magnetism, and 

 chemical affinity. The beautiful experiment of Faraday, completed and 

 fully developed by Foucault, of a cube submitted to rapid motion becoming 

 hot when this motion suddenly stopped, is the sufficient and certain demon- 

 stration of the transformation of the quantity of motion into the quantity 

 of heat a transformation regulated by the principle of equivalents. At 

 length we arrive at the theory or metaphysical reason of these intimate 

 relations of the homogenesis, of these mutual generations or transmissions, 

 always obeying the laws of equivalents. Our profound conviction is, that 

 Mr. Grove and M. Scguin arc perfectly correct when they assert that in 

 nature there are only two things, matter and motion; matter under two 

 forms, and submitted to the law of universal attraction; motion once im- 

 pressed on matter, which cannot augment either in. its quantity or in the 

 sum of its active forces, which may be successively transformed and 

 modified. 



