186 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



placed at the summit of the modern theory of energetics 

 by Helm and Ostwald, after earlier writers, such as 

 Zeuner and Mach, -had already used it or drawn atten- 



"Naturforscherversammlung," held 

 at Vienna in 1894, a committee 

 was appointed to report in 1895 

 at Liibeck on the " actual position 

 of energetics," and the introduc- 

 tion of the subject was put into 

 the hands of Dr Helm. His ad- 

 dress and the discussion which 

 followed have been given in extract 

 in the published ' Verhandlungen ' 

 (vol. ii. part 1, p. 28, &c.), and 

 since continued in ' Wiedemann's 

 Annalen,' vols. Ivii. et seqq. Simul- 

 taneously, however, the subject 

 received a much more fundament- 

 al or philosophical development 

 through Prof. Ostwald's general 

 address at Liibeck with the some- 

 what polemical title " Die Ueber- 

 windung dea wissenschaftlichen 

 Materialismus." From that mo- 

 ment the mechanical view of 

 nature bore the stigma of ma- 

 terialism, to which the other 

 side replied by attaching to the 

 new or energetic view the stigma 

 of "metaphysical" (see Planck, 

 'Wied. Ann.,' vol. Ivii. p. 77) as 

 being scientifically vague and 

 useless. It cannot be said that 

 the whole matter has yet been 

 fully discussed or fathomed. Prof. 

 Boltzmann, Prof. Carl Neumann, 

 and Dr Helm have treated the 

 questions at stake with much 

 patience, and have made valuable 

 approaches to a mutual under- 

 standing. The various contrib- 

 utions are most fully discussed 

 in Helm's latest work, ' Die En- 

 ergetik ' (Leipzig, 1898). Some of 

 those who originally assisted in 

 introducing the energetic treat- 

 ment have since refused to go the 

 length of Helm's and Ostwald's final 

 generalisations, though they prefer 

 for the purpose of the treatment 



of thermo-dynamical and chemical 

 problems the phenomenological 

 method, admitting at the same 

 time the usefulness of the atomic 

 and mechanical hypotheses, though 

 some do not look upon them as 

 indispensable. This phenomeno- 

 logical view, which deals only 

 with observable and measurable 

 quantities, in contradistinction to- 

 the atomic and kinetic views, 

 is largely represented by Prof. 

 Nernst (see his ' Theoretical Chem- 

 istry,' translated by Palmer,. 

 London, 1895, p. 22), and by 

 Prof. Planck (see his 'Thermo- 

 dynamik,' Leipzig, 1897), though 

 the latter considers it merely 

 provisional, a stepping - stone in 

 the direction of a mechanical 

 view (p. v, preface). Prof. Boltz- 

 mann has summed up the position 

 from a general point of view in 

 his address at Munich in 1899. 

 He there very lucidly defines the 

 mechanical, energetic, and pheno- 

 menological positions, admitting 

 the usefulness of all three, but also- 

 points out the fundamental diffi- 

 culties into which a one-sided and 

 exclusive development of any of 

 them unavoidably leads us. Hav- 

 ing himself done so much in ap- 

 plying atomic theories, he con- 

 cludes by saying that " the 

 numerous conquests of the atomic 

 doctrine cannot be won by pheno- 

 menology or energetics," and main- 

 tains " that a theoiy which yields 

 something that is independent 

 and not to be got in any other 

 way, for which, moreover, so many 

 physical, chemical, and crystallo- 

 graphic facts speak, must not be 

 combated but further developed "" 

 (' Verhandlungen der Versamm- 

 lung zu Miinchen,' 1899, p. 121). 



