109 



body moves, if we ignore the will of God ia the matter; but it 

 is equally impossible, for me, at least, to understand, how any 

 one can deny the fact. 



22. Another term which may be briefly noticed before passing 

 on is Energy/^ This is sometimes spoken of as Force, at 

 others as Motion, and again as Working Power. It is made to 

 mean any or all of these; but usually it implies motion or working 

 power; and in this sense we shall always refer to it. Whatever 

 may be the views of most of our modern physicists on these 

 minor points, they are generally united in upholding the great 

 doctrine of the Conservation of Energy, — a doctrine whfch has 

 been called one of the greatest discoveries of the nineteenth 

 century, — a doctrine which has a very pretentious appearance 

 at first sight, but which, when touched by the spear of sound 

 logic and careful science, dwindles into a bundle of vague and 

 unwarranted assumptions. The doctrine stated in its simplest 

 form is, that the sum of actual and potential energy in the 

 world is constant/'' 



23. The first assumption is that, motion, or energy, never 

 begins. Thus Mr. Grove writes (p. 26), " With the perceptible 

 phenomena of motion the mental conception has been invariably 

 associated, to which I have before alluded, and to which the term 

 force is given, the which conception, when we analyze it, refers 

 us to some antecedent motion.^^ Now, the mental conception 

 of force does not refer to any antecedent motion, but to the power 

 of originating motion. The statement here, however, is, — no 

 motion without previous motion. Tyndall teaches the same, 

 regarding it as a self-evident truth that " the cause of motion 

 must itself be motion." He also asserts that we can make no 

 movement which is not accounted for by the contemporaneous 

 extinction of some other movement." Yet, in opposition to 

 this, he speaks of necessary as distinct from spontaneous action ; 

 the transformation as distinct from the creation of force. 

 Dr. Bence Jones writes (^^ Croonian Lectures," p. 37), '^^Ac- 

 cording to modern ideas, the difi'erent forms (of energy) are so 

 related to one another that none can be lost, and none can be 

 produced except by passing into or out of some other form of 

 energy." And Mr. Spencer, in still stronger terms, writes, " To 

 think of motion as either being created or annihilated, — ^to 

 think of nothing becoming something, or something becoming 

 nothing, — is to establish in consciousness a relation between 

 two terms, of which one is absent from consciousness, which is 

 impossible. The very nature of intelligence negatives the 

 supposition that motion can be conceived (much less known) to 

 either commence or cease." 



24. In reply to all this, we would ask why motion must be the 



