242 
oeings. It is a sad miscarriage of the powers of human reason, 
when those who have laboured most assiduously in unravelling 
the higher mysteries of physical causation are not thereby 
brought nearer to their Creator, that : — 
“ Those earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights, 
That give a name to every fixed star, 
Have no more profit of those shining lights 
Than those who walk, and wot not what they are.” 
61. The bearings of Evolution, Conservation, and Continuity 
on the higher relations of man to his Creator must be left for a 
future communication, to which the title of “ Scientific 
Materialism ” may be not inappropriately applied. 
The Chairman. — It is now my duty to more that the thanks of this 
meeting he given to Mr. Brooke for his very able and scientific paper. 
Certainly, if Mr. Brooke and the discussion, which is now about to take 
place, can do anything to remedy the “ confusion worse confounded,” which 
at present pervades the scientific and philosophical wnrld in regard to the use 
of the terms “force ” and “ energy,” a great deal of good will be done, for I 
confess that as matters stand at present, I never hear the words used without 
finding that there is a great amount of confusion and uncertainty in their 
application. I may mention that strangers who desire to do so are invited 
to take part in the discussion ; but as, to-night, there happens to be present 
one who is pointedly referred to in Mr. Brooke’s paper, I think I shall con- 
sult the feelings of the meeting if I ask him to open the debate, after our 
Honorary Secretary has read a written communication from Dr. M‘Cann. 
Captain F. Petrie then read Dr. M‘Cann’s communication as follows : — 
I am glad to find that Mr. Brooke agrees with me in my condemnation of 
the way in which physicists, for the most part, speak of force, energy, and 
motion. As he also differs very much from the theories of Professor Tyndall, 
and the other physicists I have quoted, and has only taken up and fully 
discussed the statements in §§ 59 to 61 of my paper, there are, consequently, 
only a few points which I have to notice in his valuable essay. 
Conservation of energy, if limited by an Almighty will, need not, I grant, 
lead to the results I have named ; but if unlimited, or actually conserved, 
these results seem a necessary sequence, as is evidenced in my references to 
those who affirm the existence of these results. 
He states (§ 14) that “ the theory of the conservation of energy implies that 
no kind of energy can be produced by human agency, except at the expense 
of an equal amount of the same kind, or an equivalent amount of some other 
kind of energy.” From this it surely follows, in opposition to his next sen- 
tence, that the total amount of energy in the universe remains not only 
un changed, but unchangeable ; which is the usual meaning of the theory, 
although apparently not that held by Mr. Brooke. If the total amount of 
energy be changeable, ought not the words to be that “ no kind of energy is 
produced ? ” The corollary of this view of conservation, is the truism con- 
demned by Sir John Herschel, for if an energy that is not kinetic is potential, 
it is at once evident that the sum of both must be always equal. In § 29 
we are told that “ light and heat have frequently been illogically designated 
by able physicists simply as * modes of motion.’ This appears to have led 
