FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
7
clearly understood, since it largely affects our ideas as to
the nature of Force or Energy, as well as those of matter.
Any
may
physical theory which
be advanced as to the
nature of Matter must be in consonance with the second of
our great generalisations,
The phrase
"
i.e.,
the Conservation of Energy.
the Conservation of Energy " means simply
that the sum-total of Energy in the Universe
is
a constant
and indestructible quantity, just as the quantity of matter was conceived to be under the old ultimate particle theory. Energy may be transformed, or transmuted from one form to another, but Energy, considered as a quantity, can never
be destroyed.
Now
the two indispensable factors in the manifestation
what we know
Energy are mass and motion. Energy is the product of these two, and any body or particle moving with a certain velocity possesses a definite amount of energy, or m^omentuTTi, expressible as the mass multiplied by the
of
as
mxv.
velocity, or
Formerly light, heat,
it
was supposed that
electricity,
were something
else
etc.,
all
—were
than matter.
the various forces
im^ponderahles.
They
But with the growth
of
a purely mechanical idea of the Universe these imponderables were banished,
and
finally the idea of the substantial
nature of Force has been totally repudiated.
Brought into
with the atomo-mechanical theory of the Universe, the term Force has been replaced by that of Energy Energy being simply the result of the motion of m^ass, whilst line
Force
is
only considered to be a convenient term for the
and has thus no claim to any
rate of change of motion,
substantial or objective existence.^
We
shall
see
nature of Force
later is
on,
in a fair
however, that the substantial
way
to be re-established.
It is
one of the fundamental doctrines of Occult Science. Energy, then, being dependent on the two factors mass ^ See Lecture
P. xiv.,
G.
on
Tait, Recent Force.
Advances
in
Physical
Science
(1876),