we have carefully removed everything like a current of air, or want of level, or external impulse of any kind, so that when the egg falls we are completely unable to assign the origin of the impulse that has caused it to do so.
214. Now, if the egg happens to fall over the table upon the floor, there is a somewhat considerable transmutation of energy; for the energy of position of the egg, due to the height which it occupied on the table, has all at once been changed into energy of motion, in the first place, and into heat in the second, when the egg comes into contact with the floor.
If, however, the egg happens to fall upon the table, the transmutation of energy is comparatively small.
It thus appears that it depends upon some external impulse, so infinitesimally small as to elude our observation, whether the egg shall fall upon the floor and give rise to a comparatively large transmutation of energy, or whether it shall fall upon the table and give rise to a transmutation comparatively small.
Chemical Instability.
215. We thus see that a body, or system, in unstable equilibrium may become subject to a very considerable transmutation of energy, arising out of a very small cause, or antecedent. In the case now mentioned, the force is that of gravitation, the arrangement being one of visible mechanical instability. But we may have a sub-
