280 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



well-established longevity of the sun leads me to believe 

 that they also sense this conclusion. In a word, the doc- 

 trine of conservation is a priori false. 



The commonest definition of energy is, "The power 

 that can or does cause a physical change." In their 

 efforts to visualize the operation of this supposititious 

 principle of conservation in the conduct of nature, it has 

 become usual with scientists to liken the imaginary orig- 

 inal supply of it to a great reservoir of water advantage- 

 ously situated on the summit of a high mountain whence 

 it descends by degrees, circulating and meandering 

 through material nature, appearing now in the guise of 

 motion, then as heat, again as magnetism, anon as light, 

 once more as heat, and so on back and forth, to and fro, 

 indiscriminately, until the final end. This descent from 

 higher to lower potential is spoken of as the "degrada- 

 tion of energy", and the end of the whole process is pic- 

 tured as a dead sea below the level of which energy can 

 drop no further, and where absolute stagnation will pre- 

 vail. They have given a name to this figurative sea, 

 namely, "Warmetod", being the German for "heat- 

 death". For all energy is conceived by them to pass 

 eventually into the single form of heat. Indeed, the re- 

 lation of heat to motion is supposed to be so well under- 

 stood and established that their equivalents have even 

 been reduced to tables to make dynamical computations 

 easy. The study itself is called Thermodynamics, and 

 these are its two so-called "laws": 



1. For every unit of energy of any kind that 

 disappears a unit of another kind appears. 



2. Heat can only pass from a warmer to a 

 colder body. 



You will here perceive that between the original 

 strategic position of the store of energy while in the reser- 

 voir and its final inert condition in the sea of Warmetod, 

 there exists an abysmal distinction. In the latter state, 

 all kinds of energy having become resolved into heat 

 alone and all bodies having, by construction, arrived at 



