ORDINARY MEETING.* 

 The President, Sir G. G. Stokes, Bart., in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the 

 following Elections were announced : — 



Associates : — Kev. H. E. Bevan, M.A., Cantab., Gresham Professor 

 of Divinity, Middlesex ; Eev. G. B. R. Bousfield, B.A., Oxon, Middlesex. 



The following paper was then read in the Author's unavoidable 

 absence in the United States, by Mr. J. W. Slater, F.C.S., F.E.S. 



THE MECHANICAL] CONCEPTION OF NATURE. 



Qj George Macloskie, D.Sc, LL.D., Professor of 

 Biology in Princeton College, U.S.A. 



MATTER and energy, which are distinct from and 

 constantly acting upon each other, constitute, along 

 witli their various transformations, the stock-in-trade of 

 physical science. The scientific investigator may not feel 

 bound to go back of them, so as to ask whence they come 

 and who gave them their qualities ; he has not to philoso- 

 phize, but only to sjyeculate about them, testing his specula- 

 tions by observations of phenomena. He ' may speculate 

 about matter having been at first in the shape of scattered 

 atoms, subject to the pull of gravitation, this pull being 

 " energy of position," and as the atoms came together into 

 molecules, and ultimately into worlds, the energy of position 

 was transformed into other forms of energy. 



The leading generalization of science is that neither 

 matter nor energy is alterable as to the total amoimt in 

 existence. But this is qualified by the facts that whilst 

 matter is constantly collecting into masses, all kinds of 



* 5th of 29th Session. Discussion completed November, 1895. 

 t The word "Mechanical" is understood as having the meaning of 

 " Physical and Chemical."— G. M. 



E 



