William Bower Taylor

“ The stone ball that may have lain a thousand years undisturbed on the brink of a precipice has during that time lost no fraction of its static tension, but will fall with absolutely the same dynamic effect as if thrown up to its seat by a cannon but a moment before. ”

“ In the physical world we are congnizant of but four elementary or primordial ideas, beside the inevitable Time and Space. They are Matter, Force, Position, and Motion. Of these, motion is simply change of position; and force is recognized as the agent in every change of motion. ”

“ If the conception of a material connecting-link throughout space may be supposed to rest on a perception of physical fitness or necessity in such a transmitter of energy, this gives no physical reason to believe the origin of force resident in the one form of matter rather than in the other. ”

“ Thus as we have already seen that kinetic energy involves the unit of mass and the square of the linear unit directly, together with the square of the time unit inversely, the same must be the case with potential energy ; and it seems very singular that potential energy should thus essentially involve the unit of time, if it do not ultimately depend in some way on energy of motion. ”

“ In dealing with physical science, it is absolutely necessary to keep well in view the all-important principle that nothing can be learned as to the physical world save by observation and experiment, or by mathematical deductions from data so obtained. ”

“ Still more recently, Professor Tait, in an evening lecture on "Force," delivered September 8, 1876, before the British Association at its Glasgow meeting, has recurred to his kinetic hypothesis. " Why two masses of matter possess potential energy when separated, in virtue of which they are conveniently said to attract one another, is still one of the most obscure problems in physics. ”

“ In an able though somewhat prejudiced and partisan review of "The Dynamical Theory of Heat," published in the North British Review for February, 1864, after the very distinct affirmation of the great truth that "natural philosophy is a,u experimental and not an intuitive science: no a priori reasoning can conduct us definitely to a single physical truth ;" ”