12. MATTER IS AN ENERGY TRANSFORMER.
As each different kind of energy represents some specific form of motion, and vice versâ, some sort of mechanism is needful for transforming one kind
into another, therefore molecular structure of one kind or another is essential. The transformation is a mechanical process, and matter in some particular and appropriate form is the condition of its taking place. If heat appears, then its antecedent has been some other form of motion acting upon the substance heated. It may have been the mechanical motion of another mass of matter, as when a bullet strikes a target and becomes heated; or it may be friction, as when a car-axle heats when run without proper oiling to reduce friction; or it may be condensation, as when tinder is ignited by condensing the air about it; or chemical reactions, when molecular structure is changed as in combustion, or an electrical current, which implies a dynamo and steam-engine or water-power. If light appears, its antecedent has been impact or friction, condensation or chemical action, and if electricity appears the same sort of antecedents arc present. Whether the one or the other of these forms of energy is developed, depends upon what kind of a structure the antecedent energy has acted upon. If radiant energy, so-called, falls upon a mass of matter, what is absorbed is at once transformed into heat or into electric or magnetic effects; which one of these depends upon the character of the mechanism upon which the radiant energy acts, but the radiant energy itself, which consists of
ether-waves, is traceable back in every case to a mass of matter having definite characteristic motions.
One may therefore say with certainty that every physical phenomenon is a change in the direction, or velocity, or character, of the energy present, and such change has been produced by matter acting as a transformer.