[35] Professor Garnett in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. By "Force" is understood "any cause which tends to alter a body's natural state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line." Of the nature of such causes science professes to know very little, and as Clerk-Maxwell, who knew as much as most men, sang apropos of a lecture of Professor Tait's:
| ... Tait writes in lucid symbols clear one small equation; |
| And Force becomes of Energy a mere space-variation. |
[36] Balfour Stewart, Conservation of Energy, § 115; by Clerk-Maxwell, apud Garnett, ut sup.
[37] Tyndall, Fragments of Science, 5th Edition, p. 23.
[38] Conservation of Energy, § 209.
[39] Sir William Thomson, now Lord Kelvin.
[40] March 29, 1888.
[41] So of another effort in the same direction Capt. Hutton tells us: "The last champion in the field is Professor A. W. Bickerton, who thinks he has found a way in which this dismal conclusion, as he considers it, may be averted. But he is not very sure about it, and has to assume: first, that space contains now and always will contain, a large quantity of cosmic dust scattered through it with some approach to uniformity; and secondly, that the Universe consists of an infinite number of what he calls 'cosmic systems,' travelling through space, constantly throwing off dust in all directions and occasionally colliding. As all this is pure assumption and highly improbable, I cannot think that Professor Bickerton has brought forward any serious objection to the theory of the dissipation of energy, and his hypothesis must be added to the list of failures." (Lesson of Evolution, p. 14, n.)
[42] Lesson of Evolution, p. 14.
[43] Darwin and after Darwin, p. 17.