NA TURE 



THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1913. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF ENERGY, 

 ergetische Imperativ. Erste Reihe. 



B\ 



Wilhelm Ostwald. Pp. iv+544. (Leipzig: 

 Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft m.b.H.. 1912.) 

 Price 9.60 marks. 



IT was at the Leeds meeting of the British 

 Association in i8qo that three foreign 

 hemists, van't Hoff, Arrhenius, and Ostwald, 

 propounded and defended a new theory of solu- 

 tion which has since then been generally accepted. 

 One of them, Wilhelm Ostwald, simultaneously 

 imported another germ of thought, which for some 

 years afterwards exercised the minds of Poynting, 

 Lodge, Heaviside, and numerous other physicists. 

 It was a development of the conception of the 

 conservation of energy. It was the question as 

 to whether energy, being indestructible, had an 

 existence independent of matter, whether it re- 

 tained its identity, and whether it could be fol- 

 lowed up from point of point of space in its 

 various transformations. 



To Ostwald the idea came with the force of a 

 revelation, and in the work before us he describes 

 his "spiritual " experience with the most engaging 

 candour. He confesses that the idea of the iden- 

 tity of energy and its commanding importance as 

 the most fundamental of all realities has coloured 

 and controlled his whole subsequent life. 



This conception has undergone many vicissi- 

 tudes. The Deutsche Naturforscher at Liibeck in 

 1893 appeared to dispose of it finally, and its dis- 

 cussion on that occasion was described as a 

 "summary execution." Ten years afterwards 

 Einstein put forward a plea for the identity of 

 matter and energy, equating one gram with v- 

 ergs, where v is the velocity of light in cm. sec. 

 Planck's more recent hypothesis of the discrete 

 or atomic structure of radiant energv lends un- 

 expected support to Ostwald 's original conception, 

 and although it is difficult to see much advantage 

 in substituting an elusive entity like energy for 

 matter as a fundamental realitv, it is quite pos- 

 sible that the identity of energy may play a con- 

 \ siderable part in the future development of 

 theoretical physics. 



The present volume is a collection of essays 

 strung (somewhat loosely sometimes) upon this 

 central idea, propounded in the form of a precept 

 which the author calls the "energetical impera- 

 tive." This precept enjoins us never to waste 

 energy, but to utilise it in its highest form. The 

 four sections of (1) philosophy, (2) organisation 

 and internationalism, (3) pacifism, (4) education, 

 NO. 2263, VOL. 91] 



and (5) biography serve to group these essays 

 with regard in tin author's activity as a publicist. 



In reading these brilliant essays, one is not 

 iurprised at the sobriquet of the "genial revolu- 

 tionary " which their author earned among his 

 friends in Leipzig. The energetical imperative is 

 vigorously used to enforce economy and efficiency 

 of organisation. It is propounded and proclaimed 

 as the supreme guide in mundane matters, from 

 the establishment of new universities to the bind- 

 ing of books. In organising, let us say, the 

 1 iem e of 1 hemistry, it is necessary to begin with 

 the most commonplace details such as the spelling 

 and division of words and the size of the printed 

 page. Thus a " Weltformat " for printed books, 

 based upon the centimetre, is suggested. It is 

 designed in such a manner that every size can be 

 obtained by the successive duplication of the 

 smallest fundamental size, the sides of which are 

 1 cm. and \J 2. cm. respectively. No. 2 size is 

 v 2 by 2 cm., and so on. No. 9 size, 16 by 

 22'6 cm., is proposed as a universal size for 

 scientific periodicals; No. 8 size, n'3 by 16 cm., 

 is a convenient pocket size; and No. 10, 22'o by 

 32 cm., a good quarto. 



Then we find a proposal to adopt one gram of 

 pure gold as the basis of an international cur- 

 rency, and another to abolish the months of the 

 calendar and count the days in numerical order. 

 If, in addition, January 1 is made a supernumerary 

 Sunday, with a similar interpolation at midsummer 

 in leap years, the difficulty of determining days 

 of the week is greatly reduced. The reading of 

 numbers in thousands, hundreds, and the other 

 powers of ten is to be abandoned, and numbers 

 are to be read by a simple succession of figure-, 

 as is already the practice in quoting telephone 

 and motor numbers. This reform applies, of 

 course, with greater force in France or Germany 

 than in England. 



Then follows, very properly, the question of an 

 international language. Ostwald is an enthusiastic 

 supporter of the principle of an artificial inter- 

 national language, and defends it with conspicuous 

 force and ability. Dr. Zamenhof's "Esperanto" 

 was, by common consent, the finest and most suc- 

 cessful solution of this problem hitherto proposed, 

 and one naturally would have expected a born 

 organiser like Ostwald to make the most of it. 

 But his action in supporting Couturat's improved 

 Esperanto ("Ido") was a very serious blow to 

 the cause of Esperanto and of any artificial world- 

 language. No doubt the abolition of the accented 

 consonants was intended to facilitate the work of 

 printing, but no such consideration justified the 

 abandoning of the accusative case which gives 

 Zamenhof's " lingvo " its marvellous flexibility. 



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