2 28 Force, Energy, and Will 



both from the activity which bhnds him when he attempts 

 to gaze at the sun itself, and from the motion which has 

 exposed him to its rays. Is he right in so beheving ? If he 

 is, then much of our modern scientific teaching tends to 

 render popular, phrases which imply false ideas about nature, 

 and thus to occasion such an intellectual backwater as has 

 been referred to. The false physical conception also carries 

 with it consequences of far greater moment. 



The scientific teaching which I believe implies false ideas 

 about nature is that which concerns the 'conservation of 

 energy,'^ or, as it was earlier named, the 'persistence and 

 transformation of force.' Few conceptions have of late 

 obtained a wider currency amongst that part of the public 

 Avhich is interested both in physical science and philosophical 

 speculation than have three represented by the expressions 

 ' the unity, the 'persistence, and the transformation of force.' 



As to the idea of the metamorphosis of 'force,' Meyer, 

 Joule, Grove, and Helmholtz are perhaps, as Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer says, ' more than any others to be credited with ' its 

 ' clear enunciation ' ; but certainly its wide diffusion has been 

 largely aided by one who adds to his many claims on our 

 esteem, as a man of science, the gift of a most persuasive 

 eloquence. Indeed, Professor Tyndall's clear expositions of 

 scientific facts, supplemented by the charm of his brilliant 

 rhetoric, have familiarised so many minds amongst us with 

 the conception of the transformation of force, that now a 

 reverent acceptance of this belief seems to have become, in 

 the opinion of many, the articulns stantis vel cadentis 

 scientice. 



But the conception of a persistent ' force ' which undei*- 

 goes Protean transformations has found large acceptance in 

 philosophy no less than in science. The many Avho take 



^ Professor Tait, in the work before referred to, speaks (p. 362) of * the 

 fast rising temple of science, known as the law of the conservation of energy.' 



