THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY 



of the century had seen it elaborated and substantially 

 demonstrated in at least three different countries, yet 

 even the leaders of thought did not so much as know 

 of its existence. In 1853 Whewell, the historian of the 

 inductive sciences, published a second edition of his 

 history, and, as Huxley has pointed out, he did not so 

 much as refer to the revolutionizing thought which even 

 then was a full decade old. 



By this time, however, the battle was brewing. The 

 rising generation saw the importance of a law which 

 their elders could not appreciate, and soon it was noised 

 abroad that there were more than one claimant to the 

 honor of discovery. Chiefly through the efforts of 

 Professor Tyndall, the work of Mayer became known 

 to the British public, and a most regrettable contro- 

 versy ensued between the partisans of Mayer and those 

 of Joule a bitter controversy, in which Davy's con- 

 tention that science knows no country was not always 

 regarded, and which left its scars upon the hearts and 

 minds of the great men whose personal interests were 

 involved. 



And so to this day the question who is the chief dis- 

 coverer of the law of the conservation of energy is not 

 susceptible of a categorical answer that would satisfy all 

 phil< >s< .phers. It is generally held that the first choice 

 lies ' JuK> and Mayer. Professor Tyndall has 



expressed the belief that in future each of these men 

 will be equally remembered in connection with this 

 work. But history gives us no warrant for such a hope. 

 Posterity in the long run demands always that its he- 

 roes shall stand alone. Who remembers now that 

 Robert Hooke contested with Newton the discovery 



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