554 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



what we are. All the ethics and morals ever thought of never could 

 have effected this. We must eat before we can philosophize ! 



Of yore, figures of men and women in the sweat of their brows, 

 digging, were a symbol of humanity. The symbol of modern mankind 

 is the man who, by switch-board, steering wheel, or dictograph, expends 

 enormous amounts of mental energy with but trifling muscular effort 

 for the attainment of his ends. This elevation of man from the level 

 of the ox to that of a higher being, who controls absolutely amounts of 

 energy thousands of times greater than that represented by the muscles 

 of his body; this is a great ethical gain which we owe exclusively to 

 technology. 



We may also find ethical applications of the idea of " figure of 

 merit," or the efficiency relation. Jesus said of Himself that He came 

 to bring peace into the world. Unfortunately, in the outcome, the 

 sword was more prominent than the dove, and the church, as such, did 

 but little for the realization of the idea. However, the perception that 

 warfare involves an immense waste of energy, both in actual war and 

 in armed peace, is a view destined to be of decisive effect. 



To be delivered from waste of energy is to be delivered from evil. 

 Take the most abstract of the sciences, philosophy, and the most ab- 

 stract branch of it, logic. What can that have to do with transmuta- 

 tion of energy or with improvement of efficiency? Logic has for its 

 subject the laws of thought, and for its object the avoidance of de- 

 fective thinking. Let us suppose its object so far attained that only 

 very few individuals are any longer guilty of drawing incorrect con- 

 clusions. Who can estimate how colossal is the waste of energy which 

 would be spared if men almost invariably thought correctly, and were 

 accordingly noble and virtuous in their dealings? In that happy state, 

 all those energies now expended for judiciary, for punishment, for 

 police and for government, would be set free to use for higher ends. 



Ostwald emphasizes the ethical side of all these considerations and 

 condenses the whole into a principle, called by him the energetic im- 

 perative, valid in all phases of our lives, technical, intellectual, ethical ; 

 as follows: "Waste no energy, use it!" 



We know energy in two states or conditions. In one it is free to do 

 work, or to be transmuted. In the other, it is in a dissipated state, like 

 a cup of water poured in the sand, and is not available for use. It we 

 call " bound energy." We are, then, expressing the facts of observation 

 in saying, " any given amount of energy consists of two parts, free and 

 bound." 



Now, in every process of any kind, a portion of the free energy be- 

 comes bound, but never does any part of the bound energy become free. 

 Everything of which we have knowledge as happening is subject to this 

 law. Hence, the utmost limit of human achievement is, that we should 



