Energetics

“ In this brief essay, it has not been attempted to do more than to give an outline of some of the more obvious principles of the science of energetics, or the abstract theory of physical phenomena in general; a science to which the maxim, true of all science, is specially applicable— that its subjects are boundless, and that they never can, by human labours, be exhausted, nor the science brought to perfection. ”

“ According to the first principle of energetics, for the vital fact to be derived from the thermal fact, the heat must be preliminarily transformed into chemical energy, since chemical energy is necessarily an antecedent and generating form of vital energy. ”

“ ENERGY IN BIOLOGY. § 1. Energy in Living Beings.—§ 2. The First Law of Biological Energetics:—All Vital Phenomena are Energetic Transformations.—§ 3. Second Law:—The Origin of Vital Energy is in Chemical Energy. Functional Activity and Destruction.—§ 4. Third Law:—The Final Form of Energetic Transformation in the Animal is Thermal Energy. Heat is an Excretum.
The theory of energy was thought of and utilized in physiology before it was introduced into physics, in which it has exercised such an extraordinary influence. Robert Mayer was a physicist and a doctor. ”

“ In energetics we do not reason in this way. We say that the body possesses a capacity for work which will be manifested when the opportunity arises, a storage of energy, a virtual or potential energy, or again, an energy of position, which will be transformed into actual energy or real work as soon as the body falls. ”

“ This postulate is the foundation of biological energetics. It may be useful to give some explanation relative to the signification, the origin, and the scope of this statement.
Biological energetics is nothing but general physiology reduced to the principles that are common to all the physical sciences. Robert Mayer and Helmholtz gave the best description of this science, and laid down its limits by defining it as “the study of the phenomena of life regarded from the point of view of energy.”
§ 1. Energy at play in Living Beings. Common or Physical Energies. Vital Energies. ”

“ There are three great laws of energetics:
1. The sum total of the energy of the universe is invariable.
2. The several forms of energy are interconvertible, and possess an exact quantitative equivalence.
3. The tendency of all forms of kinetic energy is continually toward reduction to forms of molecular motion, and to their final dissipation uniformly throughout space. ”

“ From mechanics to chemistry the concept of energy is the most important; and for the last three sciences it is the concept of life. Mathematics, energetics, and biology, therefore, embrace the totality of the sciences. ”

“ The idea of energy has become the point of departure of a science, Energetics, to the establishment of which a large number of contemporary physicists, among whom are Ostwald, Le Châtelier, etc., have devoted their efforts. ”

“ As for energetics, of which thermodynamics is only a section, it is agreed that even if it cannot forthwith absorb mechanics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and physiology, and build up that general science which will be in the future the one and only science of nature, it furnishes a preparation for that ideal state, and is a first step in the ascent to definite progress. ”

“ The exponents of what is called "energetics" have in many cases come to regard that the quantity of which is so conserved, as a substantial reality whose forms and distributions compose nature. A contemporary scientist, whose synthetic and dogmatic habit of mind has made him eminent in the ranks of popular philosophy, writes as follows:
"Mechanical and chemical energy, sound and heat, light and electricity, are mutually convertible ”

“ The phenomena of functional activity are exothermal.
Real vital phenomena thus lie between the chemical energy which gives rise to them, and the thermal phenomena to which they in their turn give rise. The place of the vital fact in the cycle of universal energy is therefore completely determined. This conclusion is of the utmost importance to biology. It may be expressed in a concise formula which sums up in a few words all that natural philosophy can teach as to energetics applied to living beings. “Vital energy is a transformation of chemical energy into thermal energy.” ”

“ The states to which the term, potential energy, is especially applied, are those which are solely due to mutual actions.
To put a substance into a state of energy, or to increase its energy, is obviously a kind of work. ”

“ The term "energy" comprehends every state of a substance which constitutes a capacity for performing work. Quantities of energy are measured by the quantities of work which they constitute the means of performing.
"Actual energy" comprehends those kinds of capacity for performing work which consist in particular states of each part of a substance, how small soever; that is, in an absolute accident, such as heat, light, electric current, vis-viva. Actual energy is essentially positive. ”

“ To constitute potential energy there must be a passive accident capable of variation, and an effort tending to produce such variation; the integral of this effort, with respect to the possible variation of the passive accident, is potential energy, which differs in work from this—that in work the change has been effected, which, in potential energy, is capable of being effected. ”

“ An improvement of these conditions is to be attained only by the introduction, as rapidly as the progress of the science warrants it, of symbols to which we refer the manifoldness which experience tells us is peculiar to the concept.
The sciences which have been classed above as a part of energetics occupy an intermediate position. In addition to the concepts of order, number, magnitude, space and time we meet in this branch of knowledge with the new concept of energy, which is applied as universally to every phenomenon in this field as the other universal concepts. ”

“ Let a homogeneous substance possess a quantity Q, of a particular kind of actual energy, uniformly distributed, and let it be required to determine the amount of the effort arising from the actual energy, which tends to perform a particular kind of work W, by the variation of a particular passive accident x. ”

“ An essential distinction exists between two stages in the process of advancing our knowledge of the laws of physical phenomena; the first stage consists in observing the relations of phenomena, whether of such as occur in the ordinary course of nature, or of such as are artificially produced in experimental investigations, and in expressing the relations so observed by propositions called formal laws. The second stage consists in reducing the formal laws of an entire class of phenomena to the form of a science; ”

“ Combustion, radiant energy, what are these but modes of motion? A living, breathing, thinking organism called man, or an expiring puppy on the sidewalk, are but different modes of vibration of this one universal substance. From worlds to atoms, from atoms to monads, from monads to motion,—and we find the universe held in a solution of omnipotent, electric energy, just as salt is held in solution in the ocean. ”

“ Nothing is lost in Nature’s distribution of force and energy. Everything accomplished in life, either in the physical handling of material, the brain work in planning the constructions, the mental movements of thought in art, literature, or science, are all representatives of the heat and energy released from the body, and it is the effort of every man and woman to make the body yield as large an income as possible in the expression of this energy. ”

“ The Conservation of Energy and the inter-convertibility of forces—light, heat, electricity,—taking place constantly everywhere, often on a stupendous scale, require bewildering calculations by an ever-present God. No energy, not even potential energy, can be lost in converting one force into another. ”

“ You see, Masters, heat is energy, just like electricity and light. The energy these spheres shoot out is a mixture of energies. We can imagine a spark of electricity shooting out and striking a man like a bolt of lightning, but it's hard to visualize heat behaving that way. ”

“ There is a constant flow of energy around your planet. The entire cosmos is energy. We, too, are energy. Swim in it! Feel yourself as a pulsating, living part of the universal energy; feel yourself to be in tune with this energy — to be flowing along with it, in harmony with it. If you become disturbed or distressed, you have stepped out of the flow. If you go against your conscience, you will go against the flow and be pushed out of it. ”

“ All the mechanical power which comes from the combustion of fuel and all the muscular force of the animal kingdom is but the transmutation of solar energy through the mediumship of plant-life. Well might we say, as did the pagans of old, "We are children of the sun." ”

“ Energy is recognised in two forms, kinetic and potential. The form of energy which is most apparent to us is the _energy of motion_; for example, a rolling stone, running water, a falling body, and so on. We call the energy of motion _kinetic energy_. Potential energy is the energy a body has in virtue of its position--it is its capacity, in other words, to acquire kinetic energy, as in the case of a stone resting on the edge of a cliff. ”

“ Secondly, energy: a primitive, indestructible something, which causes motion and manifests itself under its many diversified forms, such as gravity, mechanical work, molecular and atomic forces, light, heat, electricity, and magnetism, all of which are merely Protean transformations of the one fundamental energy, and convertible into each other. ”

“ It is all a part of that transmission of energy which appears to be the business of the universe.
The sun's heat pours upon the earth, and passes through whatever substance it strikes, coming out transformed variously, according to the nature of the substance. Man receives his complement of energy, like every other creature,—physical stimulus from food and fire, psychical stimulus from its less known sources; and these impressions tend to flow through him into expression as naturally as, though with more complexity than, in other creatures. ”

“ The ultimate of ultimates is mind or spirit—the eternal intelligent spirit of Deity and man.
I accept the scientific postulate that the conservation of energy and the correlation of forces affirm, first, that there is but one kind of energy or force in the physical universe; but I go further and contend electric energy is that force. Second, that, like matter energy cannot be created or destroyed. Third, [Pg 165] that energy appears in a variety of forms as motion, heat, light and so-called gravity and chemical action. ”

“ Energy Recognized by its Effects.—Like force, energy is invisible and we are aware of the forms only by the effects produced by it.
We recognize heat by warming, by expansion, by pressure.
[Pg 126]
We recognize light by warming, by its affecting vision.
We recognize electrical energy by its heat, light, motion, or magnetic effect. We recognize mechanical energy by the motion that it produces. We recognize chemical energy by knowing that the source of energy does not belong to any of the foregoing.
A boy or girl is able to do considerable work. They therefore possess energy. ”

“ And all this movement, from the surging of the mighty ocean to that subtle movement concerned in our thought, has but one common cause. All this energy emanates from one single center, one single source—the sun. The sun is the spring that drives all. The sun maintains all human life and supplies all human energy. ”

“ Energy is action according to law. But there is psychical energy as well as physical energy, or 'a double faced' unity—psychical on one side and physical on the other. Thought, feeling, volition are all species of energy subject to laws of their own. And, what is most wonderful, while they are invisible and intangible they control all physical energy in man and all animal organisms, just as universal spirit and will or volition control all energy and law in the physical universe. ”

“ As motion, heat, and nervous power the body uses most of its energy.
The Source of Bodily Energy.—As already indicated, the energy of the body is supplied through the food and the oxygen. These contain energy in the potential form, which becomes kinetic (active) through their uniting with each other in the body. Somewhat as the power of the steam engine is derived from the combustion of fuel in the furnaces, the energy of the body is supplied through the oxidations at the cells. ”

“ Energy is, indeed, the real modern Proteus—constantly assuming different shapes, difficult to grasp if not held in fetters; now taking on the form of a lion, now of a flame of fire, a whirlwind, a rushing stream. As sober, literal matter of fact we catch glimpses of energy under these very forms. ”

“ This is only another version of the old story that energy is our strong point and favourable characteristic, rather than intelligence. But we may give to this idea a more general form still, in which it will have a yet larger range of application. We may regard this energy driving at practice, this paramount sense of the obligation of duty, self-control, and work, this earnestness in going manfully with the best light we have, as one force. ”

“ Lastly, to fortify this hypothesis, materialists point to the doctrine of the conservation of energy, which is supplied by the science of physics as a sort of buttress in this matter to the teachings of physiology. ”

“ The energy gained or lost is the quantity of work done on a body, or done by that body; so I want you to grasp, if you possibly can, the fact that every case of motion on this earth—even the sound of my voice, as I now speak to you—is due to the exercise of this particular energy. ”