ON THE DISSIPATION OF 

 ENERGY 



{Being article in " The Fortnightly Review? March, 1892.] 



THE old chimera of " the perpetual motion " 

 still lives, not so much in popular belief as in the 

 scientific imagination. If we are now to feel sure 

 that it has no more real existence than the fabled 

 monster of Lycia and Etna, it is primarily because 

 naturalists have failed, after diligent and persever- 

 ing search, with all the help they could get from 

 the science and art department of mankind ever 

 since its commencement many thousand years 

 ago, to find any creature fulfilling the imagined 

 characteristics ; not because philosophy can prove 

 any absurdity in the idea that such a species 

 should exist. In its original form of a machine 

 which could do work without food, or fuel, or 



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