THE FAILURE OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 599 



the stick. If both have the same velocity, and that in the same 

 direction, then the stick exists no more for our feeling, for 

 it can not come in contact with us and effect an exchange of 

 energies. 



These premises show, I hope, that all that it has hitherto been 

 possible to represent with the aid of the ideas of matter and force 

 can be represented, and much better, by means of the idea of en- 

 ergy ; all that is required is a transference of the properties and 

 laws which have been ascribed to the former to the latter. We 

 further gain the very great advantage of avoiding the contradic- 

 tions which were attached to the former mode of conception, and 

 which I have exposed in the former part of my thesis. While we 

 make no other supposition concerning the connection of the 

 different kinds of energy with one another than that given 

 through the law of the conservation of forces, we gain liberty to 

 study objectively the various properties appertaining to these 

 several kinds of energy, and can thus, by the rational considera- 

 tion and arrangement of these properties, set up a system of sorts 

 of energy which will reveal to us exactly the similarities as well 

 as the differences between them, and will therefore carry us scien- 

 tifically much further than can be done by the obliteration of 

 these differences by the hypothetical assumption of their intrinsic 

 identity. We find a good exemplification of this position in the 

 kinetic theory of gases, which is now almost universally accepted, 

 according to which the pressure of a gas arises from the collisions 

 among its moving particles. Now, pressure possesses no special 

 direction : a gas presses equally in all directions, but a collision 

 is dependent on a moving object, and the motion has a definite 

 direction. Consequently, there can be no turning back of one of 

 the bodies immediately upon the others. The kinetic hypothesis 

 deals with this difficulty by artificially neutralizing the proper- 

 ties of direction appertaining to the collisions through the assump- 

 tion that the collisions take place equally in all directions with- 

 out distinction. In this case the artificial adaptation of the prop- 

 erties of the different energies may be successful, but in other 

 cases it is not quite possible. Thus, for example, the factors of 

 electric energy tension and quantity are magnitudes which 

 I might propose to call polar ; that is, they are not only desig- 

 nated by a numerical value, but they also possess a sign of such 

 form that two equal magnitudes of opposite signs add up as noth- 

 ing, and not as of double value. Such purely polar magnitudes 

 are not known in mechanics. This is the reason why it will 

 never be possible to find even a barely passable mechanical hy- 

 pothesis for electrical phenomena. If such a mechanical entity 

 with properties of polarity could be constructed which is per- 

 haps not impossible, and is at any rate worth a thorough investi- 



