( 796 ) 
at two temperatures (or the corresponding expressions for dilute 
solutions) we could determine epee eee Ho,» and iene in other words 
we could find the absolute values of the energy and of the entropy 
experimentally, though both contain indefinite additive constants 
according to our definition, so that only differences of energy and 
entropy are liable to be measured. 
So we are certain that / must contain values of energy and 
entropy which reduce the values of the energy and the entropy in 
the exponent to differences of energy and entropy. And, to confine 
ourselves for the present to the difference of energy, one difference 
of energy must determine one velocity of reaction, the other the 
other, their algebraic sum being the total difference of energy in the 
conversion, so the heat of reaction. Accordingly it is not possible 
that the total heat of reaction appears in both the velocities of reaction, 
as we might be inclined to suppose. Or in other words the total 
heat of reaction must be split up into two parts, of which the first 
determines one velocity, the second the other velocity. What is now 
the “intermediate state’, which determines this splitting up of the 
heat of reaction? First of all we might think of the state in which 
the reacting compounds are entirely split up into their atoms, so that 
one velocity is determined by the energy of dissociation of the reacting 
substances, the other by that of the reaction products. But this 
supposition has sense only when we assume that the reaction really 
takes place over the free atoms. How in the opposite case the really 
occurring process would be entirely determined by the then altogether 
fictitious heat of dissociation in the atoms, is difficult to see‘). And 
though for the kinetic theory the supposition of dissociation may 
have some attraction, because it is an analogue to the thesis that 
every substance has a vapour-pressure however slight, and admits of 
continuous transitions, if is easy to see that the assumption of such 
a course “over the atoms” does not decide the question, but on 
the contrary only displaces and complicates the difficulty. 
For when the reaction takes place over intermediate bodies present 
in an appreciable quantity, whatever they be, the total reaction will 
no longer consist of two, but of four partial reactions, because also 
these intermediately formed bodies will be converted to the original 
and the forming substances with definite velocities. The process of 
the reaction then becomes more complicated, and can be expressed 
1) In our opinion quite arbitrarily TrAurz introduces as determinative for reactions 
without intermediate products the heat of splitting up of the reacting substances 
into atoms deprived of their kinetic energy, and a part of their potential energy 
absolute zero, solid state). See Traurz, Zeitschr. phys. Chem. 64 et seq. 
