180 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



chapter, while dealing specially with the kinetic view 

 of natural phenomena, I had again occasion to refer to 

 the opinion which has latterly crept into mechanical 

 explanations — namely, that they are to be looked upon 

 merely as symbolical, an opinion which did not enter the 

 minds of the original propounders of the vibratory theory 

 of sound and light, and which some eminent natural 

 philosophers to-day strongly oppose. An opposite fate 

 seems to have befallen the mechanical hypothesis in 

 chemistry and in physics. Whilst Dalton's atoms were 

 accepted with hesitation, the further elaboration of the 

 atomic view has made it almost impossible to resist it 

 as a physical reahty ; whereas the necessary complica- 

 tions introduced into Young's undulatory theory in 

 order to make it cover electro - magnetic phenomena 

 have given it the appearance of unnaturalness and arti- 

 ficiality — so much so that Maxwell himself abandoned 

 the line of reasoning which led him originally to his 

 fundamental formulae, and contented himself with more 

 general considerations derived from the conception of 

 energy. 

 50. The conceptions which are expressive of the view dealt 



"Kinetics" . . -^ ^ 



and"ener. with in this chapter — the energy ideas — have had a 

 similar fate. There have been those who have inter- 

 preted this view to mean that all phenomena in nature 

 can be translated into the language of mechanics : they 

 have accordingly been stimulated to invent all manner 

 of kinetic contrivances by which light, heat, electricity, 

 and chemical action can be represented. Others have 

 interpreted the equivalence of all forms of energy to 

 mean that kinetic energy is only one of the forms in 



getics." 



