ON THE PHYSICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 



97 



history of this subject has been written from various 

 points of view, 1 and angry controversies 2 as to priority 



1 The histories are mostly in Ger- 

 man. I give the titles of the more 

 important. Foremost stand the 

 writings of Prof. Ernst Mach viz., 

 ' Die Geschichte und die Wurzel 

 des Satzes von der Erhaltung der 

 Arbeit' (Prag, 1872), incorporated 

 in the author's ' Popular Scientific 

 Lectures,' translated by Thomas 

 J. M'Cormack, Chicago, 1894 ; 

 and the same author's ' Die Me- 

 chanik in ihrer Entwickelung, his- 

 torisch-kritisch dargestellt' (Leip- 

 zig, 1883, 2nd ed., 1889, also trans- 

 lated by M'Cormack, London and 

 Chicago, 1893). The philosophical 

 faculty of the University of Got- 

 tingen has twice (in!869and in 1884) 

 made the principles of dynamics 

 the subject of a prize competition, 

 presumably both times at the in- 

 stigation of the late celebrated 

 Professor Wilhelm Weber. The 

 first competition led to the publica- 

 tion of E. Diihring's ' Kritische Ge- 

 echichte der allgemeinen Principien 

 der Mechanik ' (Leipzig, 1872 ; 

 republished, with much contro- 

 versial matter, in 1876 and 1887) ; 

 the second to the publication of 

 Prof. Max Planck's ' Das Princip 

 der Erhaltung der Energie ' (Leip- 

 zig, 1887). In the same year as 

 the last book there appeared 'Die 

 Lehre von der Energie,' by Dr Georg 

 Helm (Leipzig, 1887), and lately 

 his very complete work, ' Die 

 Energetik, nach ihrer geschicht- 

 lichen Entwickelung' (Leipzig, 

 1898). 



2 The controversy turned mainly 

 on the question of the claims of 

 Dr Julius Robert Mayer of Heil- 

 bronn. The experimental work of 

 Joule in England and the theoreti- 

 cal work of Helmholtz in Germany 

 were published in ignorance of the 

 writings of Mayer. Even the earlier 

 important papers of William Thorn- 



VOL. n. 



son (Lord Kelvin) and Rudolph 

 Clausius appeared before the name 

 of Mayer was generally known. 

 The question then arose to what 

 extent the publications of Mayer 

 really anticipated the discoveries 

 and theories of Joule, Helmholtz, 

 Thomson, and Clausius. It can 

 hardly be held that they influenced 

 them. The whole of the evidence 

 as to the former point is con- 

 tained in a very complete publica- 

 tion by Prof. Jacob J. Weyrauch, 

 " Kleinere Schriften und Briefe 

 von Robert Mayer " (Stuttgart, 

 1892), which forms a supplement 

 to the edition by the same author 

 of Robert Mayer's 'Schriften,' en- 

 titled "Die Mechanik der Warme " 

 (Stuttgart, 3rd ed., 1893). Both 

 books contain very careful and ex- 

 haustive notes. Whoever desires 

 to settle the question of Mayer's 

 claims, which, however, will always 

 depend much on individual opinion, 

 will find all the documentary evi- 

 dence collected in these interesting 

 volumes. A further controversy 

 arose later as to the discovery and 

 enunciation of the second law of 

 thermodynamics, the great doc- 

 trine of the " Dissipation of En- 

 ergy." This controversy arose over 

 the publication of the late Prof. 

 P. G. Tait's 'Sketch of Thermo- 

 dynamics' in 1868, which is an 

 amplification of two articles by 

 the same author in the 'North 

 British Review ' of 1864. The con- 

 troversy, which referred mainly to 

 R. Clausius's share in the enuncia- 

 tion of the second law, can be 

 studied in Tait's little volume (1st 

 ed., 1868; 2nd ed., 1877), in vols. 

 43 and 44 of the 4th series of 

 the 'Phil. Mag.,' in his 'Recent 

 Advances in Physical Science ' 

 (especially the preface to the 3rd 

 edition, 1885), and in the 2nd 



