Relations of the Physical and Chemical Forces. 61 



On the Indefinite Quantitative Relations of the 

 Physical and Chemical Forces. By Henry Wilde, 

 F.R.S. 



(Received January 21st, 1896.) 



Among the generalisations founded upon modern dis- 

 coveries of the various properties of matter, few are of 

 greater importance than that of the definite quantitative 

 relations of the physical and chemical forces. Through 

 the labours of a number of illustrious workers in science, 

 this generalisation has come to be regarded as an absolute 

 and universal truth, embracing all cases where the forces 

 of nature are manifested or transformed. 



While everyone will admit the truth of the principle of 

 conservation under the limiting conditions in which it has 

 been presented for acceptance, yet, there is another prin- 

 ciple in direct opposition, but at the same time containing 

 the principle of conservation, which, from its incommen- 

 surableness and other causes, is but dimly recognised by 

 modern scholastic science. 



(I.) That equal weights balance each other, and are 

 balanced by equal mechanical forces, is a generalisation 

 which would be tacitly recognised by primitive peoples 

 ages before language was invented to express such 

 relations. The earliest demonstration of this elementary 

 truth is seen in the balances figured in the papyral Book 

 of the Dead,* and in the inscriptions on Egyptian tombs 

 more than 6,000 years ago.t Fig. 1 represents a simple 



* Facsimile of the Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum. Plate 3. 

 t Sir Gardner Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Ancient 

 Egyptians. Vol. III., p. 222. 



