Manchester Memoirs^ Vol. xhnii. (\go^), JVo. I. 9 



In my paper " On the Indefinite Quantitative 

 Relations of the Physical and Chemical Forces" read 

 before the Society in 1896/ and in the lecture delivered 

 before the Society in 1902,^ it was demonstrated that the 

 principle of the conservation of static and dynamic forces 

 is subordinate to the hyperphysical principle of the 

 incommensurableness of these forces, and that the conser- 

 vation of force rested upon a different foundation to that 

 of the conservation of substance the creation or annihi- 

 lation of which is unthinkable. 



The instances of incommensurableness given included 

 (i) the Archimedian principle of the indefinite increase of 

 the mechanical forces on which most of the mechanical 

 arts depend ; (2) the indefinite increase of the electric and 

 magnetic forces from quantities indefinitely small, on 

 which the modern electrical engineering industry is 

 founded ; (3) the indefinite increase of the electro- 

 chemical forces, on which the electrolytic process of 

 refining copper on a large scale is now conducted. It was 

 further shown in my lecture referred to that, the Cartesian 

 dogma of the universal conservation of motion and rest 

 (modernised under the name of actual Sind potential energy) 

 was disproved by the creation of energy through the explo- 

 sion of endothermic substances and by other examples ; 

 and, further, that the power of spontaneous motion can no 

 longer be held to be the exclusive attribute of the 

 organized forms of the hydro-carbon compounds. An 

 illustrative instance of the creation of molar and molecular 

 motion was given in the explosion of 4'5 lbs. of gun- 

 powder, whereby 2200 foot-tons of energy would be added 

 to the sum previously existing in the universe. 



Now MM. Curie and Laborde have shown that radium 



* Manchester Memoirs, Vol. XL., pp. 61-71. 



* Ibid., Vol. XLVI., (14), p. 34, 



