122 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
such speculative hypotheses; but here again any acceptance of 
the common views regarding the laws of physical energy com- 
pels the assumption that if the energy of this sort is emanated 
from the body, the whole amount must be at most very slight 
and the quantity that could pass the copper walls in the exper- 
iment reported without being measured as heat must be not 
only within the limits of experimental error, but also too small 
for measurement by any ordinary means. 
The conclusion is that if the law of the conservation of 
energy did not obtain completely in these experiments the 
variations from it have been far too small to bear any compari- 
son with the total energy transformed; and making all allow- 
ance for errors, etc., the experiments may be fairly said to | 
demonstrate that the law of the conservation of energy held 
good as regards the men who were studied. For practical 
purposes we are, therefore, warranted in assuming that the 
law obtains in general, as indeed there is every reason a priori. 
to believe that it must obtain in the living organism. 



