434: METAPHYSICAL EVOLUTION. 



potheses current in these departments shows that the door is 

 wide open to receive light from this quarter. What can be offered 

 here is of the vaguest, yet it may suggest thought and research 

 in some minds. 



In the first place, it is highly probable that one of the problems 

 to be solved by the physicists of the present and future is that of 

 a true genealogy of the different kinds of energy. In this con- 

 nection a leading question will be the determination of the essen- 

 tial differences between the different forms of energy and the 

 material conditions which cause the metamorphosis of one kind 

 of energy into another. 



In constructing a genealogy of energies, it must be observed 

 that we will probably obtain not a single line of succession, but 

 several lines of varying lengths. It must also be remembered 

 that, as in the forms of the material world, which are their expres- 

 sion, a greater or less extensive exhibition of all the types remains 

 to the present day. 



That the tendency of purely inorganic energy is to "run 

 down," in all except possibly some electric operations, is well 

 known. Inorganic chemical activity constantly tends to make 

 simpler compounds out of the more complex, and to end in a 

 satisfaction of affinities which can not be further disturbed except 

 by access of additional energy. In chemical reaction the prefer- 

 ence of enei'gy is to create solid precipitates. In the field of the 

 physical forces we are met by the same phenomenon of running 

 down. All inorganic energies or modes of motion tend to be ulti- 

 mately converted into heat, and heat is being steadily dissipated 

 into space. Therefore the result has been and will be the creation 

 of the mineral kingdom ; of the rocks and fluids that constitute 

 the masses of the worlds. 



The process of creation by the retrograde metamorphosis of 

 energy, or, what is the same thing, by the specialization of energy, 

 may be called catagenesis. It may be denied, however, that this 

 process results iu a specialization of energy. Tlie vital energies 

 are often regarded as the most special, and the inorganic as the 

 most simple. If we regard them, however, solely in the light of 

 the essential nature of energy, i. e., power, we must see that the 

 chemical and physical forces are most specialized. The range of 

 each species is absolutely limited to one kind of effect, and their 

 diversity from each other is total. How different this from the 

 versatility of the vital energy ! It seems to dominate all forms of 



