Reader. “With few exceptions”? I fear that any exception will prove fatal to your theory. But go on, doctor; I wish to hear more about your conversion of forces.
Büchner. “We may cite a few instances of transformation or convertibility of forces. Heat and light are produced by combustion. Heat again is converted into mechanical power in steam, and mechanical force can again by friction be reconverted into heat, and, as in the electro-magnetical machine, into heat, electricity, magnetism, and light. One of the most frequent conversions of force is that of heat into mechanical force, and vice versa” (pp. 18, 19).
Reader. What conclusion do you draw from these and similar facts?
Büchner. I draw the conclusion that in speaking of forces “the word lost is an incorrect expression; for in all these and similar cases there is not a minim of power lost as regards the universe, but merely as regards the immediate object. The expended force has in reality only assumed different forms, the sum-total of which is equivalent to the original force. Innumerable examples may be adduced to establish this law, which is expressed in the axiom that force can neither be created nor destroyed—an axiom from which results the immortality of force, and the impossibility of its having a beginning or an end. The consequence of this recently-discovered natural truth is the same as that deduced from the immortality of matter, and both form and manifest from eternity the sum of phenomena which we term world. The cycle of matter sides, as a necessary correlate, with the cycle of force, and teaches that nothing is generated anew, that nothing disappears, and that the secret of nature lies in an eternal and immanent cycle, in which cause and effect are connected without beginning or end. That only can be immortal which has existed from eternity; and what is immortal cannot have been created” (pp. 21, 22).
Reader. I have heard with great attention all you have said, doctor, and I am sorry to see that you are as wrong as ever. Your argument is altogether ludicrous.
Büchner. It is, however, a mere statement of known facts.
Reader. I question this very much. But even if the alleged facts were unquestionable, and could not receive any other interpretation than that which you give of them, your conclusion about the “immortality of force” would still be groundless. In fact, the forces of which you speak are all material, and have their existence in matter alone. It is therefore vain and preposterous to argue about the immortality of such forces when you have already failed to show the immortality of matter itself. You boast that your argument is a mere statement of facts; and so do all modern sciolists, more or less awkwardly, when pushed to the wall. But what are the facts? Is heat a form of force? Is it a form convertible into another form? I perceive from your style that you never studied this subject; you only repeat like a parrot what other parrots have learned to say, without the least notion of the true state of things. Tell me, what is a form of force? What is force itself?
Büchner. It is not my duty to define force. I accept the definition of the physicists.
Reader. This is exactly what I expected to hear. Yet when a man undertakes to philosophize on anything, he ought to know very distinctly what that thing is. Do you make any difference between “forces” and “powers”?
Büchner. No, sir, as is evident from my terminology.